Early childhood preservice teachers and professional noticing

Abstract

This study focuses on professional noticing of early childhood preservice teachers. In particular, I try to explore particular aspects that lead them to select a specific child‟s work and how they interpret the selected work. Methodologically, the research is situated within the interpretive tradition in educational research. Participants were 23 early childhood preservice teachers from a Faculty of Education at a large university in Spain. The findings help to characterize different ways of noticing children‟s works, and the difficulties of relating these characterizations with their academic background in general, and mathematical background in particular. In addition, they provide insight into how future teachers give meaning to instructional situations.