PSTs participating in the course are exposed to what Grossman et al. (2009) call
‘‘approximations of practice.’’
The course takes advantage of the parallel fieldwork experience PSTs complete during
the same quarter of instruction, which is supervised by a different instructor (i.e., the
coordinator of the program). This fieldwork placement provides PSTs with access to a
classroom where they can complete the teaching assignments. Table 1 summarizes the
course objectives, activities, and resources. As shown in the table, the course is structured
in two parts. During the first part, activities focus on individual students and engage PSTs
in the analysis of student mathematical thinking and then of strategies that make student
thinking visible (such as effective questioning and the design and implementation of
mathematical tasks that allow for students to express their mathematical reasoning (Stein
et al. 2009)), and finally, PSTs enact what they have learned in the context of an interview
with a student. In the second part of the course, PSTs engage in the same sequence of
activities, but this time, they focus on classroom lessons and enact strategies in the context
of a mathematics lesson they teach to a small group of students.