It is argued throughout the literature how teacher factors are essential in understanding and improving education. Hattie (2009) has meticulously demonstrated the issue in an extensive review of meta-analyses of factors affecting pupils’ outcomes; reporting most of the factors that have moderate to large effect sizes are the classroom-level interventions or variables (e.g. direct instruction) characterized by the fact they involve teacher action. Furthermore, it is noted by the author that understanding the lens, through which teachers vision their criteria of success, and their role in learning as well as teaching, is critical to then asking about their effects. Literature contributes an image that beliefs are part of a group of constructs that portray structure and content of person’s thinking presumed to drive his/her actions (Bryan and Atwater, 2002; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). However some researchers caution to treat teachers’ beliefs critically, as they may not be always congruent with the teachers’ actions in the actual classroom situation (Natan and Knuth, 2003).
Along the lines of social and political changes in Serbia, started in 2000 in almost all sectors and levels of the education system, a series of reform initiatives were undertaken with purpose to improve and harmonize the system with contemporary European educational policies oriented to fulfillment of the Lisbon Agenda. Yet this transitional period in Serbia has been marked by discontinuity in the field of designing and implementing policies (Dimou, 2009; Stanković, 2011). Current state of affairs shows our educational practices to be to a great extent knowledge-oriented. Students are mainly supported in the acquisition of academic knowledge and skills rather than in developing key competencies (EU, 2002; Eurydice, 2010); while the dominant form of teaching/learning practice is lecturing. In past this was also illustrated by the UNICEF (2001) study; showing predominant teaching and learning methods to be frontal delivery of subject knowledge, with passive role of students and encouragement of memorization as an opposite to understanding of what is to be learned. Furthermore Pavlović and Baucal (2010) find one of the main explanations for the lower results students from Serbia achieve in the PISA survey in the very fact that teaching and learning in Serbian schools is still typically directed toward the appropriation of academic knowledge, with traditional lectures being the widespread form of teaching and learning. Earlier attempts to change dominant traditional classroom practices of teachers were not based on sufficient research findings. So far the main support in an attempt to change and modernize the teaching and learning process was development of professional in-service teacher training system; which proved to be insufficiently effective.
In this paper we focus on detailed analysis of practice of 6 mathematics teachers for whom we established in previous stages of the study to belong to “traditional” and “modern” type teacher groups. Particular focus has been given on how each constructs the learning space and learning opportunities for their students and the meaning they prescribe to actions undertaken in the classroom.

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