INTRODUCTION

Most students have difficulty in learning algebra to the extent that learning experiences in algebra results in hating mathematics in general (Baker, 2013).  Teachers are the ones providing effective learning environments focusing on meaningful experiences in learning algebra for students (Kieran, 2007). What characteristics of teachers affect teaching and learning algebra should be a topic for discussion (Doerr, 2002). Recent discussion in literature has been on noticing skills of teachers that improve teaching practices related to mathematics; especially in the area of algebra (Walkoe, 2014).

Based on different conceptualizations of teacher noticing, various frameworks were provided by researchers focusing different aspects of teacher noticing (Van Es & Sherin, 2008; Van Es, 2011). Certain framework focused solely on mathematical thinking (e.g. Jacobs, Lamb, & Philipp, 2010), on student thinking (e. g. Van Es, 2011). Van Es and Sherin (2002) provided a framework including three aspects of teacher noticing. Van Es and Sherin (2002) framework called Learning to Notice Framework includes:

"(a) Identifying what is important or noteworthy about a classroom situation.

(b) Making connections between the specifics of classroom interactions and the

broader principles of teaching and learning they represent.

(c) Using what one knows about the context to reason about classroom interactions" (p.573)

The framework includes 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). There are various studies conducted on teacher noticing based on general perspective (e.g. Van Es & Sherin, 2008) or on a category of noticing as mathematical thinking (e.g. Jacobs, Lamb, & Philipp, 2010). Although most studies focused on general mathematics teaching, certain studies focused on particular area of mathematics such as algebra (e.g. Walkoe, 2014). They also differ in their use of materials to capture and develop teachers’ noticing skills such as use of video (e.g. Sherin & Han, 2011) or classroom artifacts (e.g. Goldsmith & Seago, 2011).  Lastly, another characteristic of teacher noticing studies in mathematics education is whether they are comparative studies with respect to teaching experience ( e.g. Huang & Li, 2012) or focusing on a particular group of teachers ( e.g. Sherin & Han, 2011) or pre-service teachers (e.g. Işıksal, Koç, & Osmanoğlu., 2012).  Similarly, in European context, there are also various studies investigating mathematics teachers’ or pre-service mathematics teachers’ noticing skills (e.g. Potari, Psycharis, Kouletsi, & Diamantis, 2011). The studies follow similar trends in literature. However, to my knowledge, there is no study comparing pre-service and in-service mathematics noticing skills in the context of algebra in European context.

The purpose of this study is to explore the differences and similarities among pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers’ noticing skills in an algebra lesson. In the context of the study, teacher noticing was conceptualized as attending and interpreting events in the complexity of classroom environment. Therefore, the focus of the study is teachers’ attending and interpreting skills in an algebra lesson based on the categories of actor, topic, stance, and specificity. The study is significant since it identifies beginning teachers and in-service teachers’ noticing skills and shows how experience in teaching contributes to teacher noticing skills in algebra lesson. Based on the purpose of the study, there are two main research questions:

1-    Is there a significant difference in pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers’ noticing skills in an algebra lesson?

2-    How do pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers’ noticing skills in an algebra lesson differ?

METHOD The Design of the Study The current study is a mixed-method study. The concurrent embedded strategy of mixed method is adopted. I mainly used qualitative method, but embed quantitative method into the qualitative method. The qualitative section implies multi-case studies as teachers with varying teaching experiences were selected as the cases of the study. The Participants There are four participants of the study selected through purposeful sampling. Selin and Nil are pre-service mathematics teachers completed teaching practice courses. Can and Yeliz are in-service mathematics teachers who teach 5 to 8 grades and have one-year experience in field. The teacher education background of all participants was similar since they all took same courses from similar instructors from the same university. Data Collection A classroom video from The Inside Mathematics Project was used as a teaching episode for teachers to examine noticing skills (www.insidemathematics.org). The mathematical topic was "algebraic symbol strings- making sense of the differences between equations, inequalities, and expression". To collect data, two semi-structured interviews were conducted from the introduction and closure parts of the lesson. While watching the videos, I asked participants to note exact moments that they notice and o add brief note why they notice. When they completed all phase, we went back each minute or second that they took note and I asked two main questions while they were re-watching that part: -What have you noticed? -Why do you think it is worth to notice? What is interesting on that moment? Each audio-taped interview took 17 to 33 minutes in total. Data Analyses For the data analysis, the categories from The Noticing Framework by Van Es and Sherin (2002) was used. Four main categories and subcategories were assigned to each noticed event. Video focus dimension was not used since before the interviews participants were asked to attend the video particularly. After coded each noticing event with respect to four categories, I entered the frequencies of codes for each noticed event by each participant to compare pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers noticing skills. Then I conducted chi-square analysis used for the analysis of categorical data (Field, 2013). Since this is a mixed method study with concurrent embedded strategy/approach, I did quantitative analysis to be based for my qualitative descriptions for each category.

RESULTS The chi square analysis indicated that there is a significant difference between in- service and pre-service mathematics teachers on actor level (2, 113) = 1.62, p=.003, Cramer's V= .32. In-service mathematics teachers (31 %) made significantly more statements about student in actor category than pre-service mathematics teachers (8.5 %). In addition, there is also significant difference between pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers on topic level, (3, 113) = 18.35, p=.00, Cramer's V= .40. In-service mathematics teachers (59.5 %) made significantly more statements about mathematical thinking than pre-service teachers (22.5 %). In addition, pre-service mathematics teachers (47.9 %) made more statements on pedagogy than in-service teachers (28.6 %). Similarly, pre-service mathematics teachers (19.7 %) made more statements on management than in-service mathematics teachers (2.4 %). Furthermore, the significant differences between pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers on stance category are also found (2, 113) = 6.83, p=.03, Cramer's V= .25. In-service mathematics teachers (14.3%) made more statements with a descriptive stance than pre-service mathematics teachers (2.8 %). Furthermore, in-service mathematics teachers (38%) made more statements with an evaluative stance than pre-service mathematics teachers (31 %). In addition, pre-service mathematics teachers (66.2%) made more statements with interpretive stance than in-service mathematics teachers (47.6%). When I did chi-square analyses to compare pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers' noticed events, significant differences were found in three categories; actor, topic and stance, but not in specificity. The results of quantitative analysis indicated that in-service mathematics teachers noticed student as the actor and mathematical thinking as the topic more than pre-service mathematics teachers. However, in-service mathematics teachers noticed events in less interpretive stance than pre-service mathematics teachers. The qualitative differences among pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers' noticed events were explored based on quantitative analyses. The qualitative results will be presented and discussed during the conference.

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