Publication 6312

Excerpt: The constructivist teaching experiment emerged in the United States circa 1975 (Steffe et al. 1976) in an attempt to understand children’s numerical thinking and how that thinking might change rather than to rely on models that were developed outside of mathematics education for purposes other than educating children (e.g., Piaget and Szeminska 1952; McLellan and Dewey 1895; Brownell 1928). The use of the constructivist teaching experiment in the United State was buttressed by versions of the teaching experiment methodology that were being used already by researchers in the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Wirszup and Kilpatrick 1975–1978). The work at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences provided academic respectability for what was then a major departure in the practice of research in mathematics education in the United States, not only in terms of research methods but more crucially in terms of the research orientation of the methodology.

Key words: constructivism, methodology, teaching experiment, instrumental understanding.