Abstract: Preparing prospective mathematics teachers with the appropriate mathematical knowledge necessary for their effective teaching is an important issue in mathematics teacher education. In this study we present the model of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) developed by Ball and her colleagues (Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008) and consider it as an essential component of a cognitive approach to evaluate and characterize different types of knowledge teachers need to teach histograms effectively. The primary results indicated that the prospective mathematics teachers’ (PMTs) content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge of histograms are not at an adequate level. Finally, we discuss implications for the current professional development of Vietnamese prospective mathematics teachers in statistics.
Keywords: Mathematical knowledge for teaching, prospective mathematics teacher, histogram, statistics, professional development of teachers.