An analysis of diagrammatic activity an...

Preservice teachers need to learn how to support children with learning difficulties. This requires a critical perspective on one’s own teaching. In this paper a method is presented in order to analyse how preservice teachers support elementary school students who mainly use counting strategies when solving arithmetic problems. Using this analysing method, it becomes visible what mathematical sign activity takes place during the support and how it is intertwined with the communication about it. In this way patterns become visible in how a preservice teacher supports a child and how the child reacts. Finally, the resulting visualisation can serve as a basis for preservice teachers to reflect on their teaching.