A Study On Mathematics Student Teachers' Knowledge Of Parallelogram

The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge about parallelogram of mathematics student teachers and their expectations and evaluation of the teacher education curriculum. Comparing mathematics student teachers' knowledge of parallelogram, the author expected to know how the learning in the university produce an effect on the professional development of mathematics student teachers, and give some suggestions for professional training of pre-service teachers.160 student teachers of freshman year and the forth year from a normal university of Shanghai participated in the questionnaire survey and interview. Using the analytical method of Sarah and others to assess change in student teachers' knowledge and the framework given by Mohan Chinnappan and Michael J. Lawson to compare the quality of student teachers'knowledge, the author obtained the following results:â… . The student teachers are short of knowledge of parallelogram at various degree, and student teachers of the forth year solve the problem effectively by consulting books and periodicals. Specific performances are as follows:1. All the student teachers need more content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge about parallelogram.2. In the second interview, student teachers of the forth year have no difficulty in giving examples about the application of parallelogram.3. The numbers of chunks of knowledge of the freshmen increase and the numbers of cross-links decrease, while both numbers of student of the forth year increase.â…¡. Student teachers of the forth year have an advantage over the freshmen in understanding of parallelogram, but the advantage is not distinct.1. With some reference material, student teachers of the forth year could make internal connections between the knowledge of parallelogram.2. The concept maps of parallelogram of student teachers show that the student teachers of the forth year have more knowledge of parallelogram than the freshmen.3. There are two elaborate chunks of knowledge about "rhombus" and "rectangle" for all student teachers.â…¢. The freshmen want to learn some basic skills of teacher. The student of the forth year need more instructional practical activities although they are satisfied with the teacher education curriculum of the normal university.Some suggestions for the curriculum for teacher education of the normal universities and the development of the student teachers are given according to the results of the study. In the end, the deficiencies of the paper have been explained and some subsequent research topics are proposed.