Describes a mentoring process that helped a Norwegian preservice teacher learn to teach elementary multiplication. The mentoring interaction provided the novice with an intensive discussion based on a small sequence of events. Through discussions with her mentor, the student teacher learned to use the language of practice to examine her own…

As reformers urge elementary and secondary school teachers to teach mathematics in new ways that highlight problem solving and engage students in important mathematical ideas, researchers have been pointing out that few public school teachers know mathematics in the ways that they would need to know it in order to teach in these new ways. These…