Designing a Competence-Based Entry Course for Prospective Secondary Mathematics Teachers

The goal of this study aims at introducing an entry course of a 3-year sequential courses module for a secondary mathematics teacher education program in Taiwan. This module is a reformed teacher education curriculum planned for Prospective Secondary Mathematics Teachers (PSMTs) to learn how to teach with the field-study approach. The field-study approach provides abundant opportunities for PSMTs to cultivate their competencies in teaching. In this chapter, we take the first year course to deliberate why the Psychology of Mathematics Learning is selected as an entry course for the teacher education program and how it works. Considering the importance to raise PSMTs’ awareness of students’ mathematical thinking and to cultivate their competencies of sensitizing students’ mathematical thinking, and ultimately to bear the competencies as the habitus in their future teaching professional, the mission of the course focuses on PSMTs’ learning of understanding students’ mathematical thinking through the process of cyclic learning. The quality of PSMTs dynamic learning in the field study can be evaluated by their study work. This chapter provides one example of PSMTs’ survey study in one complete learning cycle, and summarizes several criteria of evaluating how PSMTs conduct a study to understand students’ mathematical thinking in a holistic perspective.