Prospective Elementary Teachers Learning to Reason Flexibly with Sums and Differences: Number Sense Development Viewed Through the Lens of Collective Activity

I present a viable learning trajectory for prospective elementary teachers’ number sense development with a focus on whole-number place value, addition, and subtraction. I document a chronology of classroom mathematical practices in a Number and Operations course. The findings provide insights into prospective elementary teachers’ number sense development. These include the role of standard algorithms and their relationship to the evolution of classroom mathematical practices that involve reasoning flexibly about number composition, sums, and differences.