Description
Teachers’ beliefs are importantly linked to teachers’ classroom actions and, ultimately, to student achievement. Although much is known about general education teachers’ beliefs about how children learn mathematics and mathematics instruction, there is little known about special education teachers’ beliefs. This study then examined special education elementary school teachers’ beliefs about how students learn, and beliefs about mathematics instruction. Thirty-six special education teachers who support Grades 2 through 5 students with learning disabilities in the mild to moderate range of disability participated in two surveys, a Likert Scale and Constructed Response Survey. The surveys were followed by semi-structured interviews with four participants. Findings from the Constructed Response Survey showed that the majority of special education teachers provided little or no evidence that children can solve problems in novel ways before being shown how to solve such problems, and that, during interactions related to mathematics learning, the teacher should allow the children to do as much of the thinking as possible. Implications from this study include the need to provide professional development that helps special education teachers move from a deficit-based model (instruction based on a child’s lack of knowledge) to an asset-based model (instruction based on a child’s existing knowledge). These findings allow educational leaders to begin to strengthen special education teachers’ beliefs that all students, whether identified with learning disabilities or not, have informal knowledge upon which teachers can build.
