ABSTRACT
In this article we assess the effectiveness of an Internet-based mathematics-mentoring program that was designed to enhance prospective teachers’ ability to communicate with middle school students about mathematics. The mentoring involved reading solutions that students submitted to the Math Forum’s online Problem of the Week, and writing feedback to those students after first practicing mentoring techniques in an online discussion forum. This report reports the results of a study held in two courses: one in the fall of 2000 (n=19 mentors), and the other in the spring of 2001 (n=10 mentors). We use quantitative data to document improvement trends in mentoring quality, and qualitative data to examine the program’s success from the perspective of the prospective teachers. The results indicate that many of the prospective teachers learned to guide students’ problem solving with questions and hints and learned about the range and types of solution methods that students use to solve problems.
