Chapter 5: Using the Knowledge Quartet to Support Prospective Teacher Development During Methods Coursework

Mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) can use frameworks in mathematics methods courses as organizational structures and to inform the design of activities. Examples of mathematics teaching frameworks that could be used in this way include Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKfT; Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008), Mathematics-for-Teaching (MfT; Davis & Simmt, 2006), Political Knowledge for Teaching (Gutiérrez, 2013), Mathematical Knowledge in Teaching (MKiT), and the Knowledge Quartet (KQ; Rowland, 2014). Each framework conceptualizes knowledge for teaching mathematics differently and therefore links practice and knowledge differently as well. This chapter will explain one empirical framework, the Knowledge Quartet (Rowland, 2014), provide a rationale for its use, and describe how the author uses the KQ to organize and design activities in elementary methods coursework to support the development of prospective teachers’ (PTs’) MKiT and practices in regards to observation and lesson planning.