A classroom is a learning environment where many stimuli exist together. Teachers need to be aware of what is going on the classroom to take instructional decisions. Therefore, to improve teaching practices, it is important to determine what teachers notice and make sense of, and what they ignore. Van Es andSherin (2008) emphasized the unfeasibility of teachers’ handling all stimuli in a learning environment because of its complexity. Being reflective teacher provides teachers to solve problems in teaching through considering alternative teaching methods. However, before finding solutions, the first step for being reflective as a teacher is to know what to pay attention and how to pay attention (Jacobs, Lamb, &Phillipp, 2010)

Therefore, to examine teachers’ noticing in mathematics classrooms, mathematics teachers educators have created teacher noticing frameworks that describe what teachers notice and make sense of in a complex learning environment(Jacobs, Lamb & Philipp,2010). In literature, researchers defined ‘noticing’as “the processes through which teachers manage the ‘blooming, buzzing confusion of sensory data’ with which they are faced, that is, ongoing information with which they are presented during instruction” (Sherin, Jacobs, & Philipp, 2011, p.5). Ball (2011) supported this definition by that the nature of what teachers notice need to be related to professional purposes of teachers (e.g. improving mathematical thinking).

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) (2000) stated the importance of teachers’ analysis of student thinking during instruction. To become effective teachers,  it is necessary to understand what students think and then to make curricular and pedagogical changes accordingly (Van De Walle, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2012).  In the learning to notice framework,Van Es&Sherin (2008) stated that noticing for teaching demands “(a) identifying the significant events in a teaching situation (b) using knowledge from one’s context to reason about these events (c) making connections between specific events and broader principles of teaching and learning.”from the teachers (p.245). In this framework, there are five categories of teacher noticing as actor (e.g. teacher, student and other), topic (e.g. mathematical thinking, pedagogy, climate, and management), stance (describe, evaluate, and interpret), specificity (e.g. general and specific), video (video based and non-video based). The process of effective teaching begins with teacher noticing to students as an actor, to mathematical thinking as a topic, interpreting the situation as a stance, and being specific (Van Es&Sherin, 2013).

            Recent changes in Turkish Mathematics Teacher Competence Handbook (2008) indicated that there is an emphasis on teacher noticing for possible effective teaching practices provided by the mathematics curricula. Teachers need to be aware of what they did in the classrooms and how their teaching practices are matched up with previously noticed practices aligned with the curricula. Noticing is an important skill for teachers to become adaptive to learning environments. Literature indicated that teachers noticing skills improve according to experience in teaching (Jacobs, Lambs, & Philipp, 2010). Therefore, this study aims to determine what pre-service mathematics teachers notice before going into the field. This study is significant because it informs teacher educators about what the pre-service teachers notice as a result of their experiences in pre-service education. It allows teacher educators to determine how to contribute pre-service teachers’ noticing skills to be competence when they start their professional career. In the light of the purpose of the study, we aim to answer the questions below:

1-    What do pre-service mathematics teachers notice?

2-    How do pre-service mathematics teachers comment on what they notice?

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