Teacher Practice

How important is discourse in the mathematics classroom? Interest in this question has grown dramatically as mathematics education has recognized the role of communication in understanding. This book presents portraits of teaching by secondary school teachers who have closely observed classroom communication, conversation, and discourse and have sought to use them to improve the quality of their teaching and their students' learning.

The construct professional noticing of children’s mathematical thinking is introduced as a way to begin to unpack the in-the-moment decision making that is foundational to the complex view of teaching endorsed in national reform documents. We define this expertise as a set of interrelated skills including (a) attending to children’s strategies, (b) interpreting children’s understandings, and (c) deciding how to respond on the basis of children’s understandings.