Pre-Service Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge In Transferring From Basic Musical Notations To Basic Fractions

We report on mixed methods research that explored pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in basic musical methods for teaching and learning of basic fractions within the framework of Vygotsky’s Theory of Scaffolding. Vygotsky’s use of scaffolding opines that knowledge, skills and prior experiences, create the foundation for potential development. This allows students to interact with adults (teachers) and/or peers in STEM domains to accomplish tasks, which could possibly not be completed independently. In accomplishing these tasks, the quasi-experimental pre-post test design was used to explore the preservice teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in music notations and fractions in nonequivalent control group design. The findings showed evidence of preservice teachers successfully transitioning from basic musical methods to introductory fractions in providing realistic mathematics discourse in the classroom. As a result, we recommend approaches that build these synergies for efficient and effective classroom mathematics discourse.

Keywords: basic musical methods, basic fractions, pedagogical content knowledge, preservice teachers, Vygotsky’s Theory of Scaffolding