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We investigate teacher beliefs about discourses for equation solving and the challenges these beliefs might pose for the implementation of instructional practices that promote deductive reasoning in algebra. To uncover these beliefs, we recorded three video explanations of solutions to the same linear equation with distinct discursive characteristics and analyzed seven secondary mathematics teachers’ small-group critical discussions of these explanations. Three prevalent themes surfaced in our thematic analysis. Teacher beliefs about discourse for equation solving specified different roles and potential benefits of deductive explanations, estimated students’ capacity to understand deductive explanations, and hypothesized differences between teachers' and students' potential to understand deductive reasoning. We discuss implications of these beliefs for opportunities to engage all learners in conceptual thinking about equations. 

We investigate the beliefs that influence middle and high school algebra teachers’ appraisals of contextual problems having diverse mathematical and pedagogical features. We asked six teachers to analyze six contextual algebra tasks and indicate how they would apportion instructional time among the six tasks based on their structure, pedagogical features, and connections to the real world. We recorded small-group discussions in which teachers shared their responses to this activity, and qualitatively analyzed their discussions for evidence of beliefs that influenced their appraisals of the tasks. The teachers’ beliefs about contextual problems attended to task authenticity, opportunities for mathematical activity, obligations of tasks, and pedagogy and access. Our preliminary findings can inform future efforts to equip teachers with contextual tasks that develop students’ algebraic reasoning and problem solving. 

We investigate the algebraic discourse of secondary mathematics teachers with respect to the topic of equation solving by analyzing five teachers’ responses to open-ended items on a questionnaire that asks respondents to analyze hypothetical student work related to equation solving and explain related concepts. We use tools from commognitive analysis to describe features of teachers’ explanations, and we use these survey responses as examples to illustrate a distinction in discourses about equation solving that has implications for students’ learning of common procedures for finding solution sets of equations and systems.