Pre-Service Teachers and Mathematics Writing

Abstract

This chapter focuses upon research related to building pre-service teachers' (PSTs') own competencies in mathematics writing (MW) as well as their skills in teaching MW and integrating MW into their future K-12 classrooms. The authors provide a review of the research with PSTs and MW. Although there is limited research on PSTs and MW, it is likely that many PSTs enter their preparatory programs with limited MW experience and competencies despite expressing beliefs in the value of MW. Therefore, there is a responsibility of mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) to build PSTs' knowledge of the various genres of MW and their purposes, to explicitly teach PSTs to compose high-quality MW themselves, and to provide frequent models of how MW may be integrated into the mathematics classroom across a range of genres. The authors conclude with suggestions for current practice and future research.