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is not always clear. Certainly the culture existing within the school setting has been
shown to galvanize some of these experiences into concrete notions (Goos, 2006;
Karaagac & Threlfall, 2004). In this paper I offer a different mechanism for
galvanizing teachers’ experiences. First, teachers’ knowledge/beliefs are moved from
the subconscious to the conscious through the act of reification (Wenger, 1998). But
reification is more than just an explication of tacit knowledge/beliefs. It is also
putting that knowledge/beliefs out into the world as if they have a reality of their own.
Acting, and then enacting, this knowledge/beliefs through task design and then
delivery of these tasks serves to further galvanizes this knowledge/beliefs. Although
not comprehensive, and far from conclusive, I have introduced the idea of reification
and enactment into the discourse of Learning through Teaching in general, and into
the area of conditions of teachers’ knowledge in particular.

CONSTRAINTS ON WHAT TEACHERS CAN LEARN FROM

THEIR PRACTICE: TEACHERS’ ASSIMILATORY SCHEMES
Martin A. Simon
Penn State University
INTRODUCTION
Every teacher’s greatest opportunity for further learning in mathematics education is
her classroom teaching. The number of hours spent, the diversity of situations, and
the continual feedback available from students make teaching an opportunity for
teacher learning that has no equal. So, of course all experienced teachers are highly
knowledgeable and competent? Of course, we know that to be untrue. The contrast
between the opportunity for learning inherent in teaching and the often-limited
knowledge gleaned by teachers suggests a subject of inquiry and discussion. What is
it that limits what teachers can learn from their teaching?
An important answer to this question is their current understandings (and their
current goals, which are based on their current understandings). Just as students’
learning of mathematics is afforded and constrained by their extant knowledge
(assimilatory schemes), teachers’ mathematical and pedagogical learning is similarly
afforded and constrained.
In this article, I will focus on two examples of teacher conceptions that we have
postulated in the context of recent research projects. These conceptions appear to be
widespread and do have significant impact on the perceptions, decisions, and learning
of teachers in their classrooms. However, it should be noted that these conceptions
are the researchers’ descriptions of how teachers’ thinking is organized and not
necessarily how the teachers would describe their thinking or beliefs (Simon & Tzur,
1999).

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PERCEPTION-BASED PERSPECTIVES
The construct perception-based perspective developed in the context of a research
project in the US in which we worked with and studied a group of practicing and
prospective teachers (Simon, et al, 2000). These teachers6 had come to appreciate the
limitations of telling and showing students as their primary teaching medium and
were participating in the mathematics education reform that began almost 20 years
ago. What is more, these teachers had personally experienced important conceptual
learning during recent professional education experiences. As a result, they were
committed to providing students with the kinds of conceptual learning experiences
that they had had recently, but had not had as primary and secondary school students.
As researchers, we characterized the perspective of these teachers as perception-
based7. From this perspective, students develop mathematical understanding through
personal engagement with particular mathematical tasks and representations that
make the concept under study clearly perceivable. The assumptions behind this
perspective are that understanding is important, that first-hand experience and active
engagement promote understanding, and that particular mathematical tasks and
representations give all learners the opportunity to perceive key relationships and
gain intended understandings. From this perspective, mathematical relationships exist
in an external reality, are perceivable by all learners, and what is perceived is the
same for each person.
It is not surprising that teachers develop this perspective. The teachers came to
understand particular mathematics while engaged with particular mathematical tasks
and representations. There experience was that of coming to see the relationships and
understand the concepts, because it was so clear in the context of these tasks and
representations. Further, people tend to assume that others perceive what they
perceive in a given situation. In fact, none of us could communicate, if we did not
make that assumption most of the time. Von Glasersfeld (1987) made a similar point
in the context of reading:
When we understand what we read, we gain the impression that we have "grasped" the
meaning of the printed words, and we believe that this meaning was in the words and that
we extracted it like kernels out of their shells. . . . This notion . . . is extraordinarily strong
and seems so natural that we are reluctant to question it. (p.6)
So when these teachers have powerful learning experiences that they perceive to be a
result of active engagement with particular tasks and representations, they assume
that such engagement in similar situations will benefit their students in the same way.
Thus, they seek a set of mathematical tasks that will allow students to see the
concepts to be learned.

6
From this point on, unless otherwise indicated, the word “teachers” refers to both
practicing and prospective teachers.
7
This construct is related to earlier work by Cobb, Yackel, and Wood (1992).

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As indicated above, teachers, regardless of their perspective, are likely to assume that
students perceive what they, the teachers, perceive. However, the difference between
a teacher who we would characterize as having a perception-based perspective and a
teacher who we would characterize as having a conception-based perspective is that
the latter can call that assumption into question when students do not respond in
anticipated ways. Further, from a conception-based perspective the teacher focuses
on what conceptions the learners bring to the situation and how they are making
sense of the situation.
Operating from a perception-based perspective, teachers focus on whether or not the
students are perceiving particular relationships and understanding particular concepts.
This focus restricts what teachers learn from their practice. Because of this focus,
teachers are unlikely to learn about their students’ conceptions, obstacles to
understanding particular concepts, or the process of making particular conceptual
advances. These teachers are not attending to how students are thinking about the
situation, but rather whether the students are perceiving what the teachers take to be
apparent in the mathematical situation under study. In contrast, working from a
conception-based perspective, teachers are likely to learn about students’ conceptions
and processes by which students can build on those conceptions.
EMPIRICAL LEARNING PROCESSES VERSUS REFLECTIVE
ABSTRACTION
I now turn to a second area of teachers’ conceptions, one which is related to the one
described above. A result of recent efforts to create a more active role for students in
mathematics classrooms has been an increase in lessons in which students are asked
to look for patterns in outcomes. For example, a teacher asks her students to try some
examples and to find out what happens when you add two odd numbers. Students add
pairs of numbers, either by hand or with a calculator, and observe that the answers
are consistently even. This is an example of an empirical learning process (Simon,
2006a), a process that does not result in conceptual learning. Mathematical concepts
are the result of reflective abstraction (Piaget, 2001) not of empirical learning. From
the odd-even example, the students learned that two odd numbers add to make an
even number (a fact), not the logical necessity of that relationship (a concept). In
contrast, consider a context in which students thought about a chess club with a
particular number of students. In this context, one has an even number when
everyone has someone to play with and an odd number is when one person must wait
for the next round. One can think about combining two groups with odd numbers as
matching the one extra player from each group, thus creating an even number. The
abstraction, which can be made from this thought activity, produces an understanding
of the logical necessity of two odd numbers adding to make an even.
Teachers who are not aware of the ineffectiveness of empirical learning processes to
produce conceptual learning are limited in what they derive from classroom
experience. For them, teaching is straightforward. They endeavor to have students

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generate data and provide them a structure for organizing the data, so the students can
see the relationship between the quantities. Such teaching is unlikely to engage them
in an inquiry into how a particular concept can be learned (abstracted). In fact, they
do not even engage in the often-problematic articulation of the concepts to be
learned; they are focused on the perception of relationships and not underlying
concepts.
A CLASSROOM EXAMPLE: EXPLORING ONE-HALF
I use the following classroom example to demonstrate the affordances and limitations
of the teacher conceptions described above.
In a fourth-grade class, I asked the students to use a blue rubber band on their geoboards
to make a square of a designated size, and then to put a red rubber band around one half
of the square. Most of the students divided the square into two congruent rectangles.
However, Mary cut the square on the diagonal, making two congruent right triangles.
The students were unanimous in asserting that both fit with my request that they show
half of the square. Further, they were able to justify that assertion by explaining that each
of the parts was 1 of 2 equal parts and that the two parts made up the whole.
I then asked, “Is Joe’s (rectangular) half larger; is Mary’s half larger, or are they the same
size?” Approximately a third of the class chose each option. In the subsequent discussion,
students defended their answers. However, few students changed their answers as a result
of the arguments presented. (Simon, 2006, p. 361)
When I first encountered this situation, I was quite surprised. It was a situation from
which I learned a great deal. Let us examine how the teachers’ conceptions described
above affect potential learning form this situation.
From a perception-based perspective, teachers are concerned that the students do not
see that two halves from identical wholes are the same size. The teachers are unlikely
to inquire as to the concept that needs to be developed by these students 8 or to
struggle with trying to articulate how the students currently think about one-half.
They tend to think about what experience will make the relationship apparent to the
students.
On the other hand, the teacher operating from a conception-based perspective learns
that students can recognize and define one-half without understanding that one-half is
a measure of quantity/amount. She struggles with how to articulate what the students
currently understand. My struggle of this type led to the following:
The students who argued that either the rectangular or the triangular half was larger
conceive of halves as an arrangement in which a whole is partitioned into two congruent
parts. They do not understand that partitioning a whole into two equal parts creates a new
unit whose size, relative to the original unit (whole), is determined. That is, they do not
understand that “one half” indicates a quantity (amount), not just an arrangement.. . .

8
All claims about the limitations of teachers in response to this situation are based on
research data, which is only summarized due to space limitations.

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Educators who understand a fraction as a quantity find it difficult to conceive of this

limited understanding of one half (as an arrangement). One can partition a square into
two rectangles with any cut parallel to one of the sides. Any such partition will create two
parts that can be compared to each other and which sum to the whole. However, in the
case where the partition results in equal parts, an important part-whole relationship is
determined (from the perspective of those who understand it) – a new, specified unit of
quantity is constituted. That is, the whole is twice the size of either of the equal parts.
This special relationship between the part and the whole, created by equal partitioning, is
neither obvious nor automatic to the young student who is just beginning to explore
fractions. (Simon, 2006, p. 361)
Teachers, who do not understand the insufficiency of empirical learning processes,
propose to address this issue using an empirical learning process. They propose
having students take two identical square pieces of paper, cut one in half horizontally
and one in half diagonally, and cut up the diagonal half to see that it can be
superimposed on the rectangular half. To reiterate, such activity only demonstrates to
the student that the two halves are equal in size, not the logical necessity of two
halves (or any particular fraction) from identical wholes being the same size. For
teachers who understand the learning of mathematical concepts as reflective
abstraction, a difficult inquiry ensues as to how to help students understand that equal
partitioning produces new units of quantity of a particular size with a particular
proportional relationship to the size of the whole. Tzur (1999) undertook this
challenge.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I have tried to demonstrate that teachers’ conceptions afford and limit what they can
learn form their classroom teaching. Just as students do not see what their
mathematics teachers see in a mathematical task or representation, teachers do not
necessarily see what researchers and mathematics teacher educators see. However, it
is not enough to be aware of this phenomenon. It is incumbent on those concerned
with fostering the growth of mathematics teachers to understand teachers’
conceptions. This suggests both a program of research and the inquiry of individual
teacher educators. Above, I have indicated two of the conceptions derived from
research that we have found useful in characterizing teachers thinking.
A final point: Teachers conceptions are in service of the work that they do on a day-
to-day basis. As such their conceptions have a certain internal consistency. Teachers
construct a network of conceptions that structure how they think about what they do.
To understand teachers’ thinking, researchers and teacher educators must understand
the nature of these networks and the central components around which they are
organized. Promoting change in these networks is a complicated process due to the
complexity of the networks and the interconnectivity of their components. Significant
change (paradigm shift) is unlikely to happen solely as a result of a teacher learning
from her own teaching.

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