Implementing the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards: A slow process

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to look at inservice teachers’ pedagogical beliefs about the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards (1989 & 2000).  The Standards’ Belief Instrument (Zollman and Mason, 1992) was administered on teachers.  An ANOVA was used to look for a significant difference between teachers with five years or less experience of teaching mathematics, and those with more than five years teaching experience. One expectation was  that teachers who are recent graduates of teacher education programmes may have more training  on the NCTM Standards. Although there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups, this study did support the expectation. Current training with in-service teachers shows that many of the teachers are familiar with neither the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics nor their Standards.  It seems then from this study that the implementation process of the NCTM Standards, and  perhaps any standards or best practices and new curriculum implementation, is very sluggish.