Eric.ed.gov – Designing Professional Learning Communities through Understanding the Beliefs of Learning

This study was designed to initiate the process of building professional development learning communities for pre-service math teachers through revealing those teachers’ conceptions/beliefs of students’ learning and their own learning in China. It examines Chinese pre-service math teachers’ conceptions of student learning and their related pedagogical beliefs with respect to the following four aspects: self-regulation, construction of knowledge, the social nature of learning, and a dynamic view of ability. A total of 129 middle-school and secondary pre-service math teachers from China participated in this study. The results indicated that the Chinese pre-service teachers’ conceptions of student learning and their pedagogical beliefs are constructive, process-oriented, and progressive. In addition, the traditional Chinese socio-cultural values still have an impact on the pre-service teachers’ conceptions of student learning. Implications and recommendations for designing meaningful and effective teacher professional development programs that not only incorporate teachers’ beliefs of student learning but also are aligned with Chinese mathematics education reform are also discussed. [For the full proceedings, see ED581791.]