Research shows that young children's early mathematics experience is a strong predictor of their academic achievement in future. Different from elementary and secondary schools, mathematics is not taught as an individual subject in kindergartens and education institutions for 3- to 6-year-old young learners. Early childhood teachers are expected to facilitate young children's learning instead. To provide developmentally appropriate mathematics-related experiences to young learners, teachers' professional knowledge, including pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), is critical. Teachers should be sensitive enough to the potential mathematics-related learning opportunities in daily practices in an early childhood setting.
Research on teacher knowledge for mathematics teaching usually focuses on the elementary and secondary sectors instead of early childhood sectors while teachers' mathematics-related tasks in the daily practices of the three sectors differ greatly. In a project to investigate teacher knowledge with a focus on mathematics education in early childhood education, a list of mathematics-related teacher tasks in early childhood settings is generated for the development of the knowledge framework, namely, MtEceK framework. In this presentation, the list of teacher tasks and its development process, supported with relevant literature, will be shared.
Keywords:
Early Childhood Education, Teacher Knowledge, Mathematics Education, Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project Reference No. UGC/FDS16/H06/15).
