Elaborating a Change Process Model for Elementary Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

This report focuses on the processes of change in beliefs and practices experienced by practicing elementary school teachers during a sixteen-session course using two of the modules from the Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) materials. We identify a collection of six metaphors for knowing, learning, and teaching mathematics to succinctly describe and categorize teachers’ beliefs. We present three case studies representing a continuum of change in beliefs observed among the participants of the DMI course. We relate this continuum both to the beliefs teachers brought to the course and to their degree of engagement in various components of a change process model. Using this model of change, we analyze the ways in which teachers expressed interest in change, problematized their beliefs, experimented with possible solutions, and reflected on experimental results leading to changes in beliefs and practices. The results of our analysis indicate that variations in change among participants can be explained by variations in their levels of engagement in particular elements of the change model by the learning activities of the DMI course.