Chapter 2: Prompting the Development of Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs Through Cases, Action Research, Problem-Based Learning, and Technology

Because the beliefs teachers hold influence their classroom judgments and actions, understanding more about the beliefs of teachers is essential to improving teaching practices (Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996). Because the beliefs preservice teachers hold influence what and how they learn, beliefs are also important in learning to teach (Richardson, 1996). The beliefs of preservice teachers act as a filter through which preservice teachers acquire and interpret knowledge (Pajares, 1992). For example, one of our preservice teachers, Megan, initially held the belief that teachers should answer questions from students directly, rather than use thought-provoking questions to enable students to discover answers for themselves. Consequently, Megan initially dismissed the idea that teachers should act as facilitators, reasoning that this pedagogical approach would frustrate students, and ignored much of the pedagogy taught in a teacher education course that focused on using questions and probing responses to facilitate student thinking. Thus, her initial belief that teaching is a process of dispensing information filtered the knowledge she acquired in that course.