USE OF DEFINITION CONSTRUCTION TO HELP TEACHERS DEVELOP THE CONCEPT OF SLOPE

Definition construction activities were incorporated into a mathematics education graduate course to help secondary preservice and inservice teachers, all with mathematics undergraduate degrees or the equivalent, more deeply understand the concept of slope and its connections in two- and three-dimensional mathematics. Findings of the study include: 1) defining was a new activity for the teachers; 2) teachers benefited from collaborative definition construction activities; 3) teachers' definitions were inefficient; and 4) few teachers had a profound understanding of slope or its connections in the mathematics curriculum.