Early Childhood Teachers‘ Professional Competence in Mathematics
Routledge Research in Early Childhood Education Series

This edited volume presents cutting-edge research on the professional competence of early childhood mathematics teachers. It considers professional knowledge, motivational-affective dispositions, skills and performance in early childhood mathematics and outlines future fields of research in this area.

The book argues that it is essential for early childhood teachers to prepare a high-quality learning environment and that mathematical competence is highly relevant for children?s individual development. Bringing together research from mathematics education, educational science and psychology, it integrates international perspectives and considers the contextual factors that affect the development of children?s mathematical competence within Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. The book uses a model to describe professional teacher competence that considers the dispositions of early childhood teachers, situation-specific skills of early childhood teachers and the performance of early childhood teachers.

The book is the first of its kind to give a comprehensive overview and allows for integrative perspectives and interdisciplinary understanding regarding pre- and in-service ECEC teachers? professional competence in the domain of mathematics. It will be essential reading for academics, researchers and students of early childhood education, mathematics education and teacher education.

Chapters 5, 6, and 13 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

1. Introduction

   Simone Dunekacke, Aljoscha Jegodtka, Thomas Koinzer, Katja Eilerts & Lars Jenßen

2. Part 1 - Dispositions

   1. Voices of competence: What I learned from my Early Education students
      by Herbert P. Ginsburg
   2. Preschool teachers’ mathematical pedagogical content knowledge and self-reported classroom activities
      by Joke Torbeyns, Febe Demedts and Fien Depaepe
   3. Age-appropriate performance expectations and learning objectives of early childhood teachers in the field of mathematics: a cross-country comparison of Austria and Switzerland
      by Karoline Rettenbacher, Lars Eichen, Manfred Pfiffner & Catherine Walter-Laager
   4. How preservice teacher training changes prospective ECEC teachers’ emotions about mathematics
      by Oliver Thiel
   5. A math-avoidant profession? Review of the current research about early childhood teachers' mathematics anxiety and empirical evidence
      by Lars Jenßen
   6. Kindergarten educators’ affective-motivational dispositions: examining enthusiasm for fostering mathematics in kindergarten
      by Franziska Vogt, Miriam Leuchter, Simone Dunekacke, Aiso Heinze, Anke Lindmeier, Susanne Kuratli Geeler, Anuschka Meier, Selma Seemann, Andrea Wullschleger & Elisabeth Moser Opitz

3. Part 2 - Situation-Specific Skills

   1. Early mathematics education – What do pre-service teachers learn?
      by Simone Dunekacke & Sigrid Blömeke
   2. Supporting Preservice Early Childhood Educators to Identify Mathematical Activities in the Actions of Preverbal Young Children
      by Audrey Cooke & Jenny Jay

4. Part 3 - Performance

   1. Early childhood teachers‘ selection of subskills-related activities and instructional approaches to foster children’s early number skills
      by Lara Pohle, Lars Jenßen & Katja Eilerts
   2. Longitudinal Evaluation of a Scale-up Model for Professional Development in Early Mathematics
      by Julie Sarama, Douglas H. Clements & Shannon Stark Guss
   3. Preschool Teachers’ Ways of Promoting Mathematical Learning in Picture Book Reading
      by Camilla Björklund & Hanna Palmér
   4. The relative frequency of mathematical learning opportunities in the morning circle in relation to the development of children’s mathematical competencies
      by Aljoscha Jegodtka, Georg Hosoya, Markus Szczesny, Lars Jenßen, Corinna Schmude
   5. Outlook: Context and its consequences—a neglected factor in research on early-childhood teachers’ professional skills?
      by Esther Brunner

Simone Dunekacke is Assistant Professor for Research on Early Childhood Education at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Aljoscha Jegodtka is Professor for Social Work at the International University Berlin, Germany.

Thomas Koinzer is Professor for Educational Science at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.

Katja Eilerts is Professor for Primary School Education in Mathematics at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.

Lars Jenßen is a Researcher in Educational Science and Psychology with a focus on Mathematics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.