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Jemma Kwon
California State University Sacramento
jemma.kwon@csus.edu

Lauren N. Wong
University of Florida

USING THE TEACHER KNOWLEDGE QUARTET IN MATHEMATICS METHODS

COURSE FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION: A STIMULUS FOR PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TO
DEVELOP THEIR PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

The study draws on Rowland et al.'s (2005) "knowledge quartet" idea, which conceptualizes
elementary teachers' mathematics knowledge within four categories. To garner insights into how
to transform those ideas to special education teacher education, a teacher learning tool was
designed, used in a mathematics methods course, and evaluated in its effectiveness. Results
indicated that pre-service special education teachers had difficulty exhibiting higher levels of
mathematics knowledge on the teacher learning tool.

Background and Rationale

Since Lee Shulman’s (1986) seminal essay, there has been consensus among teacher
educators that teachers of mathematics need to develop specialized knowledge above and beyond
knowing mathematics or knowing pedagogy. Various development and validation studies have
been pursued to unpack the complexity of mathematical knowledge for teaching and/or its
association with quality in mathematics instruction (e.g., Charalambous, 2016). The current
study posits a pressing need for insights into how to transform those ideas to teacher education,
with a particular focus on pre-service special education teachers (Pre-SETs), who are responsible
for serving students who need extensive supports to learn mathematics. More specifically, the
authors intended to codify explanations for teacher candidates and formalize learning
opportunities for them.

Literature Review

The study draws on Rowland et al.'s (2005) "knowledge quartet" idea, which
conceptualizes elementary teachers' mathematics knowledge within four categories. The first
category, Foundation, considers that knowing mathematics content informs teachers’
instructional decision-making in the lesson planning phase and knowledge-in-action during
lesson enactment. The second category, Transformation, delineates teachers' selection and use of
analogies, illustrations, and explanations to prompt students to make sense of mathematics
concepts and procedures. The third (Connection) and fourth (Contingency) categories address
coherence (e.g., making connections between alternative ways of representing concepts or
carrying out procedures, anticipating complexity) and responding appropriately to students’
contributions (e.g., deviating from planned lesson to develop student’s unanticipated ideas).
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However, it can be difficult for pre-service teachers to develop these four knowledge
areas, and often experience particular difficulty generating visual representations (VRs). For
example, a study examining the procedural and conceptual knowledge of fraction multiplication
and division of preservice teachers (n = 55) found participants demonstrated weak abilities to
generate accurate VRs when given a fraction problem (Morano & Riccomini, 2020).
Specifically, 38% of Pre-SETs were able to generate an accurate VR to model fraction
multiplication and none were able to provide an accurate VR for a fraction division problem.
Similar results are observed in studies of Pre-SET knowledge of VRs: Pre-SETs have some
conception about VRs (e.g., VRs as products such as graphs, tables, diagrams), but provide
narrow explanations and make few references for using VRs to identify patterns, explain or
communicate an answer, or monitor or check the problem-solving process (van Garderen et al.,
2018). Research also indicates pre-service teachers' struggles with developing sophisticated
schema to understand the diversity of student thinking and multiple sources of student
misconception. For example, pre-service teachers often have difficulties determining students'
pre- and misconceptions. As a result, their prediction of student thinking is procedural in
nature, such as algorithmic mistakes in the context of teaching fractions (Tiroshi, 2000).

To an extent, these difficulties in developing appropriate applications of VRs and

accurate predictions of students' preconceptions and misconceptions may stem from Pre-SETs'
own experiences learning mathematics. Studies of mathematics teaching efficacy and
experiences learning mathematics have found that a high level of mathematics anxiety can
negatively affect mathematics teaching efficacy (Swars et al., 2006). Yet, much remained to
consider pre-service teachers' own conceptual and procedural knowledge in mathematics. For
example, Li and Kulm (2008) found the pre-service teachers' strong confidence in teaching
fraction division but inadequate conceptual understanding and fragmented procedural knowledge
would inhibit them from teaching fraction division effectively. Accordingly, while building upon
a solid understanding of mathematics content, pre-service teachers should develop their
pedagogical knowledge, including mathematical representation, reasoning, and common
misconceptions, and practice them explicitly.

In this light, the study involved using a teacher learning tool based on Rowland et al.'s
(2005) "knowledge quartet" consisting of the four teacher knowledge categories when teaching
elementary mathematics – foundation, transformation, connection, and contingency. This
learning tool, referred to as the Teacher-Translation-Task (TTT), was used to prompt Pre-SETs
to explore the four knowledge categories in designing and enacting a mathematics lesson. The
TTT includes a chart divided into 4 quadrants to take planning and anticipatory notes for given
mathematics tasks. For this study, the authors analyzed Pre-SETs' artifacts (i.e., TTT) to examine
the quality of mathematics knowledge and pedagogy.

Teacher Translation Task

The TTT is a graphic organizer in the format of a quadrant chart, where each quadrant
parallels a category from Rowland et al. (2005). The first quadrant paralleled Foundation.
Because mathematics education has long emphasized both conceptual and relational
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understanding as well as procedural and instrumental understanding in mathematics learning, we

emphasized targeted focal points and big ideas in designing the foundation quadrant of TTT. The
second quadrant of the TTT focused on visual representations and was designed to enable Pre-
SETs to articulate how mathematics is or should be visually represented. The two lower
quadrants of TTT were structured based on Connection and Contingency. The former addresses
the coherent body of knowledge, while the latter addresses teacher cognition and decision-
making in the teaching moment focused on how to respond to a particular student's thoughts and
reasoning regardless of the correct answer.

The purpose of the TTT was to prompt Pre-SETs to perform anticipatory research and
analysis of given mathematics tasks based on the following prompts: (a) What is the fundamental
mathematical idea the teacher should highlight?; (b) Include a sketch of visual representation(s)
that might help make sense of a mathematical idea; (c) Ask yourself, "How might my students
solve this problem without using algorithms or well-known procedures?"; and (d) "What
misconception(s) would emerge while solving the problem?" Almost every week, Pre-SETs in a
mathematics methods course for special education explored mathematics tasks as independent
and asynchronous learning activities before in-class discussions. It covered mathematics content
such as early number sense, the meaning of the 4-operations, computations, place-value
concepts, and fractions.

Methods

This study was conducted at a public university located on the western coast of the
United States. Participants included Pre-SETs enrolled in a mathematics methods course for
special education as part of a teacher preparation program for dual credential of elementary
school and mild/moderate educational specialist or mild/moderate only. Among 40 students, 23
provided informed consent. Because of the nature of tasks (weekly basis and asynchronous
learning), many participating Pre-SETs did not submit their work on time. Thus, they missed a
significant number of weeks or submitted missing ones in the final week. Then, the authors
selected Pre-SETs who showed a consistent work pattern throughout the semester.

The six participants were selected from three groups based on responses to a survey
conducted at the beginning of the semester that asked respondents to rate their experiences
learning mathematics and their perceptions of their own mathematics ability during in their K-12
education. The first two participants perceived mathematics as one of their strength areas in their
K-12 schooling, another two candidates perceived themselves as successful at school
mathematics but did not enjoy math, and finally, two candidates who have a history of struggling
with school mathematics and are unmotivated to learn mathematics.

For this study, the authors analyzed Pre-SETs artifacts (i.e., TTT) to examine the quality
of mathematics knowledge and pedagogy. To assess the quality of the TTT, a rubric was
developed for each individual mathematics task. The corresponding rubric for each TTT task
outlined the four aspects of pedagogical content knowledge (i.e., mathematics focal points;
visual representation; cognitive challenges and reasoning; and potential student misconceptions)
Pre-SETs could attempt to develop. Two raters assessed the quality of Pre-SETs' interactions
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with the TTT by comparing each TTT with the rubric then rating the TTT on a scale of one to
four. The scale was based on Grossman et al. (1999), where a one indicated a lack of sufficient
knowledge of the tool, two indicated adoption of a label for the tool but an inability to describe
the tool’s critical features, three indicated adoption of surface-level features, and four indicated
appropriation of the tool’s conceptual underpinnings or theory behind the tool. Raters discussed
initial evaluations until they arrived at a consensus.

Results and Implications

Findings indicate a pattern of profoundly or superficially exploring the given

mathematics task using TTT in all three groups of Pre-SETs. Analysis of Pre-SETs’ artifacts
indicate the following levels of knowledge appropriation with the TTT: (1) no adoption due to
lack of understanding of concepts and opportunities to apply it to teaching contexts; (2) adoption
of a label for the tool; for instance, being able to name the tool but unable to describe critical
features of it; and (3) adoption of surface feature. Rarely, did Pre-SETs exhibit (4) appropriation
of the tool through a full understanding of underpinnings and background theory behind the tool.

For example, Pre-SETs’ interactions with the problem, “Show 5/8 > 3/7 without using the
common denominator,” depicts their superficial exploration of conceptual tool (i.e., TTT) and
practical tools (i.e., virtual manipulative for area/length and set models) as shown in Figure 1.
Note that this TTT was given after the class explored fraction comparisons with the whole (1) as
a benchmark number with the problem, “Show 5/4 >7/8 without using the common
denominator.” So, Pre-SETs learned how to teach fraction comparison by using ideas that 7/8
has one fractional part missing until the fraction reaches 1, while 5/4 goes past 1 by one
fractional part. As such, we expected candidates to generalize what they learned to a more
challenging concept and select a more effective visual representation out of the given set of
virtual manipulatives.

Figure 1.

Sample of Visual Representation and Prediction of Student Misconception.

Candidate A Candidate B. Rubric

Length model with Cuisenaire Rods on graph paper (Candidate A) would be a better
choice in teaching the target concept intuitively and visually than the set model (Candidate B).
Neither candidate, however, noticed the need to augment the initial VR to highlight the
benchmark number, "half," as seen in the Rubric. Our data analysis indicates difficulty
identifying preconceptions and misconceptions as well. For example, Candidate A's statement,
"Because they are not the same size, students may see 3-7th as bigger," shows a discrepancy
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between what she predicted as student (mis)conception and what her students would see from the
selected VR. In this context, a naïve conception that 5-8th is bigger by simply comparing the
length of bars should have been discussed, which is a common misconception found when a
student is transitioning from a whole number system to rational number reasoning. One more
example of note from Candidate A's work is: "Students may not see or understand 4/8 is ½
meaning they may not visually see or understand why 5/8 is greater." It indicates a less
sophisticated schema in terms of thought process: This Pre-SET uses the label "the half as the
benchmark," as she learned from the previous week's class. Yet, the teacher could not
demonstrate a complete understanding by taking the student's standpoint; a half of 7th is harder
to see visually and make sense of it. Candidate B’s prediction, “Students may think because 1/8
units are smaller than 1/7 units then 3/7 is bigger than 5/8,” suggests a lack of motivation to use
the given conceptual tool (i.e., TTT) for his/her knowledge development.

In conclusion, in order for Pre-SETs to appropriate the pedagogical content knowledge

by using the developed tool, mathematics methods course should explicitly address the traits of
effective mathematics teachers: (1) profound and flexible knowledge of mathematics content and
(2) persistence in the problem-solving process and motivation to productively struggle in the
mathematical problem-solving process.
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