MARGARET TAPLIN and CAROL CHAN DEVELOPING PROBLEM-SOLVING PRACTITIONERS ABSTRACT. This article presents a research project on the development of pre-service mathematics teachers’ skills and understanding of themselves as pedagogical problem solvers. The problems were similar to those they are likely to encounter in their future mathematics classrooms. The project took place within a Bachelor of Education program. The article describes changes in the students’ attitudes towards problem-based learning and examines the critical incidents that were catalysts for these changes to occur. The project addressed an important issue in the current Hong Kong context, with the emphasis on quality learning and instruction. With curriculum reforms in primary education, teachers are required to respond to changes and implement recommendations within the constraints of day-to-day classroom management. They need to be critical and informed professionals. Therefore, we argue that by adopting a problem-solving approach to teaching, teachers would be better able to view themselves as competent problem solvers who are able to develop various strategies to deal with change. Ongoing reforms in mathematics education require teachers to engage in continuous professional growth and adjustment to change throughout their careers in ways that were unprecedented in the past. Teachers who do not adapt successfully to change will more likely produce students who can only “follow the rules and procedures and conventions specified in the textbook” (Gregg, 1995). Several reasons have been put forward for teachers’ reluctance to embrace reform. One is that the teachers may lack the pedagogical skills and/or confidence to overcome obstacles to changes (Gregg, 1995). Also, according to Gregg, in many cases teachers believe that these obstacles are insurmountable. Many feel unable to be innova- tive because they are effectively isolated in a sink-or-swim atmosphere in which they are subject to accountability pressures (Gratch, 2000). Gratch also suggested that teachers simply lack understanding of what they are supposed to do. Whatever the reason, there is certainly evidence of a dearth of teachers who are implementing current reform ideas in mathematics (Simon, 1995). Of particular concern are beginning teachers who, despite having had recent instruction about up-to-date methods of teaching mathematics, often revert to teaching styles similar to those of their own teachers (Brown, Cooney & Jones, 1990); they show little or no change in their concep- tions of mathematics teaching despite their methods courses (Thompson, Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education 4: 285–304, 2001. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.