Assessing teachers' development of a constructivist view of mathematics learning

Abstract

SummerMath for Teachers, an inservice program which combined coursework with ongoing support in the classroom, was designed to stimulate teachers' development of a constructivist view of learning to serve as a basis for mathematics instruction. While almost all teachers adopted new classroom techniques, project researchers were particularly concerned about the impact of the program on the epistemological perspectives that informed teachers' instructional decision making. This paper describes the development of an assessment tool used to evaluate program effectiveness along this latter dimension.