The dynamics of an online case discussion among a group of fifteen prospective secondary mathematics teachers are described. During the discussion, participants offered and debated conjectures about general pedagogy, statistical content, and content-specific pedagogy. Their collective discourse showed that cases can help catalyze online conversations in which prospective teachers challenge one another's claims and interpretations. It also suggested that discussion moderators may need to help participants consider factors in addition to teacher explanations when analyzing the path of students' statistical learning. The paper closes by suggesting that a carefully-sequenced case-based curriculum may have the potential to build prospective teachers' statistical knowledge and challenge persistent misconceptions.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education