Awareness for and knowledge of students’ ways of thinking is an important component of teachers’ competence that should be gained before starting their career. The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service secondary mathematics teachers’ views regarding the role of examining students’ work in understanding students’ ways of thinking within the context of an undergraduate mathematical modeling course for pre-service mathematics teachers. The participants were twenty-five pre-service mathematics teachers enrolled in the course. Lasting eight weeks the data were collected through the pre-service teachers’ reflection papers, individual interviews, and a self-evaluation questionnaire. The analyses of data revealed that the pre-service mathematics teachers thought that examining students’ solution papers and video episodes helped them to be aware of, predict, understand, and interpret students’ ways of thinking. The findings of the study suggested that mathematics teacher educators might consider using students’ work from real classroom settings in order to both develop and support the development of pre-service mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge.