Case 1: Beyond The Algorithm: Exploring Concepts and Procedures in an Elementary Preservice Math Methods Course

Teacher candidates (TCs) enter their coursework and clinical experiences with varying degrees of problem solving confidence and skills. Some TCs, as former math students themselves, were often taught to solve problems using prescribed, rote procedures and algorithms that they may or may not have fully understood at a conceptual level at the time (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2014; Pratt & Eddy, 2017).

In the interest of effectively preparing TCs to improve upon or even transcend their potentially lacking math education experiences and foster their future students’ “procedural fluency from conceptual understanding” (NCTM, 2014, p. 46), they must explore math concepts and procedures in a flexible, holistic manner. Without building understanding of core math concepts and connecting them to effective teaching approaches, they will undoubtedly have shortcomings in their teaching effectiveness as they foster their own students’ procedural fluency (Dewi et al., 2021).