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This study investigates how four prospective teachers interpret and use textbooks while learning to teach mathematics during university coursework and practicum teaching. Results indicate that prospective teachers had varied approaches to using textbooks ranging from adherence, elaboration, and creation. Factors influencing how they engaged with texts include their practicum classroom setting, access to resources, and their understanding of mathematics. Preservice teachers' attempts to modify textbook lessons raised pedagogical, curricular, and mathematical questions for them that were not easily answered by reference to the textbooks or teacher's guides. Findings indicate that the practicum can, however, challenge preservice teachers to be creative and flexible users of curriculum materials.

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In this article, the author examines the character of the conversations generated in an elementary teacher group as they worked on mathematical problems together and analyzed their students' work. Two distinct forms of talk -exploratory and expositorywere found. The first type of talk occurred most prominently when discussions centered on the teachers' own mathematical work and the second type when conversations centered on that of their students. By examining closely the few occasions when the groups' expository talk turned exploratory, the author explores how both the nature of the tasks and the range and type of facilitator conversational strategies can play significant roles in promoting and interrupting these conversational patterns to educational ends.