"I really don't like mathematics, but I can teach it to elementary students without any problem." These words are frequently voiced by elementary teacher candidates. "It's just elementary school math it's not like I'm teaching anything really difficult. Otherwise, no way would I do it." These words are powerful in terms of teacher beliefs about mathematics, beliefs about teaching mathematics, and their metacognitive awareness about effective elementary mathematics instruction. This study was conducted during one semester involving students in two undergraduate teacher education courses and one graduate Master Mathematics course. As teacher educators in the areas of literacy development and mathematics we asked what are the differences between undergraduate teacher candidates and graduate Master Mathematics students' personal concepts about teaching mathematics and awareness of the metacognitive strategies learners use to interpret mathematic situation problems with accompanying illustrations. The view that many teachers hold is that if they have mastered mathematical content; simply instructing learners to master mathematical content is all that is needed to accurately complete mathematical situational problems. The value of this research is to develop effective Teacher Education mathematic instructional models to guide novice math teachers' development.