RR 91-1 The role of a learning community in changing preservice teachers' knowledge and beliefs about mathematics education.
Abstract
This paper examines an intervention to change prospective elementary teachers' knowledge and beliefs about mathematics education. The intervention consisted of a sequence of mathematics courses, a methods course, and a curriculum seminar in which establishing a community of learners was a central feature. The concept of community embodies the following elements: (a) teaching and learning is collaborative; (b) different approaches to problem situations are valued; (c) responsibility for understanding is shared; and (d) authority for knowing is internal and collective. First the authors discuss the ways in which creating a learning community made a significant contribution to empowering prospective elementary teachers as learners of mathematics. Next they discuss implications of this intervention for teaching mathematics to children. They provide brief cases of two of their graduates in their first year of teaching to illustrate the complexity of connecting their own experiences as learners of mathematics to new visions of classrooms they might construct for children. They conclude with a set of questions addressed to mathematics educators attempting to reform mathematics education by reforming preservice teacher education.