The effect of a professional development program workshop about problem solving on mathematics teachers' ideas about the nature of mathematics, achievements in mathematics, and learning in mathematics

Abstract

Results are presented about the effect of a professional development workshop (hereinafter PDW) for mathematics teachers regarding their beliefs about mathematics (N=82). The workshop, titled RPAula, was aimed at primary school teachers and it focused on problem solving (hereinafter PS). The teachers beliefs under study are related to the nature of mathematics, the learning of mathematics and achievement in mathematics, as well as to the type of practices, experiences, and assessments of the importance of PS and the use of PS in the classroom. The results showed that by participating in the PDW, teachers weakened their ideas about mathematics being a rigid, structured and eminently formal process. Likewise, participation in the PDW also lessened teachers' perceptions of their leading roles during the learning process, increasing their appraisal of PS practices that are student-centered. It was also noted that teachers' perception that access to mathematics learning is a fixed condition or an unalterable fact associated with students' innate abilities, gender or ethnic stereotypes, also diminished. In addition, teachers reported improvements in their self-perception of competence and self-efficacy to implement PS in the classroom with their students. These findings and their implications for mathematics learning and teaching are discussed in this article.