A Model for Faculty Collaboration in Preparing Virginia\u27s K-8 Teachers

The overall goals of the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) [1] are for students to become good problem solvers and communicators about mathematics, to reason logically and to make connections within mathematics and to other disciplines such as in solving science problems. Unfortunately, the beliefs about teaching of many preservice teachers are not consistent with these goals. Furthermore, the college mathematics courses experienced by preservice teachers are generally in contrast to these goals. This study outlines a collaborative effort of three colleges to encourage faculty to adopt a more student-investigative style of instruction A planning team offered a semester of workshops in which professors experienced student investigations, critiqued them, and were encouraged to try them in their classes. The data gathered from this study suggest there was success toward changing the beliefs and instructional practices of the professors to be more consistent with the stated Virginia overall goals for students