Developing functional thinking from teacher education to primary school
Vollmuller, B., Veldhuis, M., Otten, M., Stuber, S., Anantharajan, M., & Keijzer, R. (2023). Developing functional thinking from teacher education to primary school: students walk along the number line. Presented at: CERME13 in Budapest, Hungary.
Understanding of, and reasoning about, descriptions of relations between quantities is an important aspect of mathematical learning and essential for anyone to function in society. Performing, guiding, and designing activities to support functional thinking is currently not part of the curriculum neither in primary education nor teacher education in the Netherlands. Activities for both primary education and teacher education are developed as part of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership FunThink. This poster shows how two preservice teachers translate activities on functional thinking from teacher education to practice. We concluded that these preservice teachers translate activities on functional thinking by mimicking most of the elements of the teacher education activity. The preservice teachers also make slight adaptations to the activity based on their own beliefs and interpretation of the activity and the perceived ability of their students.