ABSTRACT
…Constructivism as an epistemology is, for us, a general way of interpreting and making sense of a variety of phenomena. It constitutes a framework within which to address situations of complexity, uniqueness, and uncertainty that Schon (1985) calls ‘messes’, and to transform them into potentially solvable problems. Thus, like any epistemology, constructivism influences both the questions posed and the criteria for what counts as an adequate solution. Its value to mathematics education will, in the long run, depend on whether this way of sense making, of problem posing and solving, contributes to the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning in typical classrooms with characteristic teachers. If it eventually fails to do so, then it will become irrelevant to mathematics educators.
