ThEMaT II: Supports for Learning to Manage Classroom Discussions: Exploring the Role of Practical Rationality and Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching - a National Science Foundation grant

A research and development proposal to the DRK12 program addressing the programmatic challenge 3, "How can the ability of teachers to provide STEM education be enhanced?" The project focuses on practicing and preservice secondary mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators.. The project will research, design, and develop materials for preservice secondary mathematics teachers that enable them to acquire the mathematical knowledge and situated rationality central to teaching, in particular as it regards the leading of mathematical discussions in classrooms. The project connects the dispositions that practicing teachers exhibit in instructional actions in algebra and geometry to the knowledge and skills aimed at by current approaches to teacher education. Thus the project contributes to three of the five components of NSF's cycle of innovation: synthesizing and theorizing notions of teacher knowledge and practical rationality; hypothesizing and clarifying how those participate in decision-making in specific situations in algebra and geometry instruction; and designing, developing, and testing a "virtual setting" for practice-based teacher education, organized around animations created with prior NSF funding.