Share Paper: Stop-Motion Animation as a Tool for Assessing Preservice Early Childhood and Elementary Teachers’ Understanding of Connections among Mathematical Representations and Computational Algorithms
Abstract: This paper describes ways in which stop-motion animation can be used to assess preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) understanding of mathematics concepts and procedures. The study draws from research literature about computational fluency, mathematical representations, and stop-motion animation as an educational tool. The study took place in two mathematics methods courses for early childhood and elementary PSTs. Thirty-five PSTs used stop-motion animations to demonstrate their understanding of computational strategies and connected mathematical representations. Preliminary findings suggest that stop-motion animation is a promising tool for revealing PSTs’ understanding and for supporting them in connecting computational algorithms and mathematical representations.