9254939 Wood The project focuses on teachers and the nature of teaching mathematics in early elementary classrooms which are compatible with current reform initiatives. This project seeks to advance previously funded NSF research projects that emphasized primary-level children's mathematical learning in these classroom environments to consider the teachers. The project has 4 interwoven goals which interrelate research and development to create realistic classroom video-based instructional materials for beginning teacher professional development. The first goals is to analyze the nature of instruction in classrooms in which teachers have been teaching in a manner compatible with reform initiatives for the past 6 years. The second goal is to analyze the process by which teachers starting to teach in this manner change their beliefs about mathematics and teaching as they learn about children's mathematical thinking, and how this process is related to and enhances their own understanding of the mathematics they teach. The third goal is to use the information acquired from the research analyses to develop prototype video-based instructional materials to deepen and enrich beginning teachers' content knowledge by developing an understanding of the mathematics that underlies children's conceptual development and forms the basis for their solution strategies. The fourth goal is to create prototypic video-based instructional materials to aid beginning teachers in creating images for classrooms in which the reform initiatives characterized by problem solving and mathematical reasoning are illustrated. The investigation of the nature of teaching is accomplished in collaboration with 20 experienced teachers currently teaching in a reform-based instructional materials for beginning teacher development both as a source for exemplary examples of classroom teaching and as collaborators in the selection and design of the classroom-based materials. These materials will th en be used in a university teacher preparation program, evaluated and revised. ***
