Elementary School Teachers' Views of Knowledge Pertaining to Mathematics.

The facets of teachers' views of mathematics include their personal views, how they view mathematics for their students, how they view the mathematics curriculum, and how they view mathematics teaching. This paper reports a pilot study to examine how elementary school teachers view mathematics both personally and for their students. A coding scheme was utilized to identify 22 elementary school teachers' views of knowledge about mathematics and purpose of schooling. When put into a matrix, the intersection of the views of knowledge and the purpose of schooling created four categories that defined a teacher type: Conveyor, Organizer, Allower, and Facilitator. Of the 22 teachers, 5 representing each of the categories and a diversity of grade levels were chosen to be interviewed. Profiles developed from the interviews are presented for each of the five teachers. Findings indicated that 13 out of the 22 teachers were classified as conveyors. Consistency was found for four out of the five teachers in how the teachers viewed mathematics, what they stated students should know, and their placement within the coding scheme. Although elementary school teachers' views of knowledge of mathematics are reflected in what they believe is important for their students to learn, the relationship between those views and what is taught is not always clear. (Contains 26 references.) (MDH)