The development and use of a constructivist taxonomy in implementing the NCTM Standards in elementary teacher education

This study examined difficulties in implementing the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards and proposed that instruction based on a constructivist taxonomy of educational outcomes would be an effective alternative to the traditional Bloom taxonomy.; The investigator developed such a constructivist taxonomy by synthesizing research on childhood, adolescent, and adult cognitive development from the work and theories of: (1) Piaget on movement from a phenomenalistic to and non-egocentrism in learning; (3) Kolb on the experiential learning cycle; (4) Perry on intellectual development from adolescence into adulthood; (5) Basseches on meta-systematic thinking and dialectical operations; and (6) Kitchner and King on reflective judgment, meta-cognition, and epistemic cognition.; The validity and usefulness of the new taxonomy were tested in two qualitative, exploratory studies that provided descriptive and analytical accounts of: (1) pre-service teachers' experiences learning mathematics in a constructivist environment; and (2) in-service teachers' experiences in using a constructivist taxonomy to develop lesson plans in alignment with the NCTM Standards. Data were collected in the form of student journals, student questionnaires, classroom observation notes, completed lesson plans and informal student interviews.; A strong majority of the pre-service teacher subjects reported that instructional activities based on the constructivist taxonomy were responsible for their shift towards the vision of learning described in the 1989 Standards and helped them understand the course content better than activities based on a Bloom Taxonomy approach. In-service teachers who were asked to use the constructivist taxonomy reported that it helped them to clarify learning objectives and create lesson plans in alignment with the NCTM Standards. When using the constructivist taxonomy, teachers developed lessons that integrated mathematics with the real world while engaging students in the process of discovery.