CHAPTER 5: Attending to Prospective Elementary Teachers’ Mathematical Affect

The influence of affect (e.g., emotions, attitudes, and beliefs) on teacher learning during university mathematics content courses is considerable. For prospective elementary teachers, negative affect toward mathematics is a particular challenge. The sizeable amount of research on teacher affect testifies to their tendencies to enter preparation programs with affective states that are less than optimal for both their own learning and their future as teachers of mathematics (Philipp, 2007). For example, many exhibit high levels of mathematics anxiety (Bekdemir, 2010). If these affective states are not addressed (or worse ignored) during mathematics content courses, there is little hope for change. Negative affect can be perpetuated, reestablished, or newly emergent during course experiences. As such, mathematics content courses offer an important venue, and typically one of the last before assuming teaching positions in schools, for prospective elementary teachers to learn mathematics in ways that alleviate negative affect toward mathematics and ideally prompt shifts in a positive direction.