Case 8: The Power Of Why: How a Teacher Candidate Elicited Their Students’ Reasoning as a Critical Aspect of Their Instruction

In this case, we examine how a teacher candidate reflected on the importance of eliciting and using evidence of their students’ thinking (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2010, 2014) for the benefit of their instructional decisions and ultimately their students’ learning. Mathematics teacher education courses vary in their balance of mathematical content learning and pedagogical practices. However, one key aspect, which we highlight in our case below, and we feel needs increased attention within teacher preparation, is for opportunity for teacher candidates to reflect on their observations of students’ mathematical thinking, infer into that thinking, and determine how their inferences of the students’ math is different from their (preservice teachers’) own.