Improving the Quality of Elementary Mathematics Student Teaching: Using Field Support Materials to Develop Reflective Practice in Student Teachers (Report‪)‬

Introduction This article presents an "evidence-based" program improvement effort that sought to strengthen student teachers' implementation of subject-specific pedagogy for teaching mathematics in a K-8 multiple subject teacher education program. We report the process of how we used a research-based approach to gather evidence about "status quo" of the mathematics student teaching component that prepared elementary level teachers, changes that were made in the program to better prepare pre-service teachers to be reflective mathematics teachers who plan and implement effective subject-specific pedagogy, and how we measured levels of effectiveness. Specifically, we investigated whether mentoring strategies and materials designed to engage student teachers in applying aspects of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) during the lesson planning/teaching/feedback cycle of student teaching would impact pre-service teacher reflective practice and teaching performance. In addition, we studied how we should change the supervision process used to develop the reflective thinking of student teachers as they engaged in teaching mathematics.