Developing Pre-Service Teachers Understanding of Fractions through Problem Posing

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, January 2009, P. 166-175
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

This study investigated the effect of problem posing on the pre-service primary teachers' understanding of fraction concepts enrolled in two different versions of a methods course at a university in Turkey.

Data were collected from pre-service primary school teachers in two different sections of a primary mathematics teaching methods course during the second term of the 2006–2007 academic year at a public university in Turkey. One section of the course, which will be called the experimental version, was taught by the author; and the instructor of the other section, the typical version, was different. In the experimental version, problem posing was used as a teaching strategy.

There were 95 pre-service teachers enrolled in the two sections. 50 of the pre-service teachers (28 female, 22 male) were enrolled in the experimental version of the course. There were 22 female and 23 male students enrolled in the control group.
At the beginning of the study, the pre-service teachers' knowledge of symbols and algorithms was adequate in both groups, but they were unable to provide appropriate representations and explanations for the given fraction situations.
Results showed that problem posing had a positive impact on the pre-service teachers' knowledge and views about what it means to know mathematics.