The influence of teacher beliefs on constructivist teaching practices

A collaborative research study was designed to facilitate, at the local school level, a mathematics teacher's development of a "constructivist" pedagogy. This paper discusses the nature and influence of the teacher's professional beliefs on his attempts to create a classroom learning environment congruent with the principles of a constructivist epistemology. Cognitive perturbation is considered an important part of the process of reshaping the teacher's conception of his classroom role. The teacher designed and implemented constructivist teaching strategies. However, the narrow scope of these innovations highlighted the significant role of the teacher's established positivist epistemology in determining boundary conditions for conceptual change. In a constructivist epistemology cognitive perturbation facilitates a learner's reconstruction of his/her ways of interpreting experiences. It is an important pedagogical focus for teachers who wish to influence their students' conceptual development. This study found that teacher beliefs moderate cognitive perturbation and, subsequently, restrict the nature and scope of the teacher's conceptual and practical classroom changes