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Using Theories to Build Kindergarten Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching

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Part of the book series: Mathematics Education Library ((MELI,volume 50))

Abstract

This chapter describes how a theory of Deborah Ball and her colleagues, embedded in the realm of teacher knowledge, was combined with a theory of David Tall and Shlomo Vinner, embedded in the realm of mathematics knowledge, to develop kindergarten teachers’ knowledge for teaching geometrical concepts. The chapter describes the separate theories and how they may be combined to build a more comprehensive and refined tool for building and evaluating mathematical knowledge for teaching. It also shows how kindergarten teachers used the combination of these theories to inform their practice. Finally, we discuss possibilities for the development and application of this combined-theories tool.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is important to note that precise language was used with the teachers as well as with the children. Terms such as corners and turns were not used. As such, ‘vertices’ is the appropriate translation from Hebrew.

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Correspondence to Dina Tirosh .

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Tirosh, D., Tsamir, P., Levenson, E. (2011). Using Theories to Build Kindergarten Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching. In: Rowland, T., Ruthven, K. (eds) Mathematical Knowledge in Teaching. Mathematics Education Library, vol 50. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9766-8_14

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