| The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to examine how ten preservice elementary teachers transformed their beliefs about mathematics teaching. The study addressed the prior experiences preservice teachers brought to an early mathematics content course and how these experiences affected their beliefs about themselves as preservice teachers of mathematics. The elementary mathematics content course was designed to foster active engagement of preservice teachers in the process of transforming their beliefs about mathematics and about themselves as teachers. This curriculum was designed to integrate constructivist teaching principles, using a framework recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) based on models of best practice (NCTM, 1989, 1991, 2000). The researcher as teacher educator modeled "best practice" using constructivist principles. |
