Characteristics of and Changes in the Noticing of Preservice Mathematics Teachers in Backward Design

Preservice teachers can enhance their instruction professionalism by constantly observing and designing various classes. Depending on what a teacher has in mind when designing a class, he or she may observe and comment differently in the class. The researchers intended to examine the characteristics of and changes in the noticing of preservice teachers when classes were designed and observed with the backward design. For the study, 29 third-year students at the College of Education designed and had demo classes with the backward design method for one semester, their peers observed the classes and wrote critiques, and what the peers noticed during the course was analyzed in terms of topics and stance. The topics noticed by preservice teachers were not only instruction strategies, interactions with students, and external conditions, but also mathematical competency or Process-focused assessment, assignments reflecting key questions, and preparation for student responses, which were different from the topics noticed in general class critiques. In terms of the noticing stance of the preservice teacher, they initially has no ground or simply recorded facts, but gradually changed to present descriptions or alternatives based on subjective judgment or making more descriptions with interpretations inferred based on experience. The research results that the noticing topics depend on instructional design, and the more class observation experience of preservice teachers accumulates, the more interpretation, suggest implications for teacher education.