ABSTRACT
Researchers in an inter-university research project that was aimed at constructing standards for the teaching of early grade numeracy analysed the text of the draft pedagogical standards. The group found that the discourse of the standards was somewhat opaque and that it assumed an understanding of terminology that many novice teacher educators would not necessarily know. To promote a unified discourse and a shared framework for early grades numeracy teaching in higher education, the authors invoked Lee Shulman’s notion of a ‘signature pedagogy’, claiming that teacher education generally pays little more than lip-service to shared values and a common discourse in this field. They advocate for a set of standards that will embody this component of teacher education for mathematics in the primary school.
