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Research has illustrated that prospective teachers struggle to construct word problems for integer operations. This paper extends the current research by examining the ways in which four classes of prospective teachers responded to a child's temperature story for an integer addition number sentence (i.e., -9 + -6 = ☐). One hundred prospective teachers responded to whether they believed that the story matched the number sentence and provided justification for their reasoning. The child's story, an actual story posed by a Grade 5 student, did not utilize temperature realistically (realism), nor was it consistent with the given number sentence (consistency). The results indicated that when prospective teachers were asked to evaluate the child's story, they tended to either focus on realism or consistency, but not both. Benefits of using children's thinking during instruction as well as implications for research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on helping U.S. preservice teachers (PSTs) make sense of mathematics. The study analyzed interviews and observations to answer questions about assisting PSTs in teaching whole number concepts and operations (WNCO). The results revealed the frustration of PSTs with learning of their elementary students in base 8.

The article describes a case study about the story of an undergraduate middle grades preservice teacher who was accepted into a teacher residency program for her final practicum in a university in the U.S. Due to her low scores on a mathematics entrance examination, the preservice teacher denied access to the program. She was eventually denied admittance into the university's teacher education program.