Lenses on Learning: How Administrators' Ideas About Mathematics, Learning, and Teaching Influence Their Approaches to Action in an Era of Reform

By Barbara Scott Nelson

If the intellectual norms and values embedded in the mathematics education reform movement are to move beyond individual classrooms and significantly influence entire schools and districts, school and district administrators will need to become centrally, rather than peripherally, involved. This paper discusses the way that administrators' ideas about the nature of mathematics, learning, teaching, and school culture affect their interpretations of the nature and intent of the mathematics reform movement and their thoughts about how they might support it. In particular, administrators' views of parents' concerns, professional development for teachers, and how new ideas move around in a school are discussed. I suggest that administrators have well-formed ideas about mathematics, learning, and teaching, and that these ideas influence their views of reform and how to provide support. These ideas need to be taken into account if administrators are to be central actors in reform.

Contact Info: Glenn Natali (1-800-225-4276 x2525)

Published by: Center for the Development of Teaching

Please order at: http://www.edc.org/MLT/CDT/paperabs.html

Price: $4.50
(22 pp.) Print