Exploring the Knowledge- Practice Gap in Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teaching

Abstract

The article presents the findings of a study on Exploring the Knowledge-Practice Gap in preservice secondary mathematics teachers that was carried out with final year preservice university teachers who were aspiring secondary school mathematics teachers and involved in teaching practice exercises as well as teaching mathematics at different secondary schools. The semi-structured interview, document analysis and classroom presentation observation were used while collecting information through only six preservice teachers engaging in teaching practice in final year of B. Ed. The researcher summarized the study on four themes on interview, three themes in document analysis and five themes in classroom observation. The qualitative results suggested that preservice teachers increased the confidence to teach mathematics after graduation and that their teaching practice experiences were fun and valuable opportunities for them to learn, but here is very sensitive gap between knowledge and classroom practice and the speaking in interview and written on document are rarely gaped. And the preservice teacher suggested that There is gap between the math teaching that preservice teachers were trained to deliver in schools and the content of the training curriculum. Discussion included a summary, suggestions for how the course could be ordered and prospective areas of the curriculum that could improve the preservice teachers' competencies, decrease math anxiety and also decrease the gap between knowledge in content and pedagogy in classroom practice.