Reconceptualizing Supporting Teachers’ Learning across the Settings of Professional Development and the Classroom

Abstract

Looking at student work has increased in popularity in mathematics teacher professional development as a promising means of supporting teachers’ learning. However, up to this point, little conceptual work has been done to articulate the theoretical underpinning of this approach. In this dissertation, my goal is to reconceptualize the role of student work by drawing on a longitudinal professional development with a group of middle-school mathematics teachers. Central to the reconceptualization that I propose is the articulation of the relations between teachers’ learning in professional development and their practice in the classroom. In my view, designs for supporting teachers’ learning necessarily involve suppositions and assumptions about such relations. These suppositions and assumptions shape not merely the goals for teachers’ learning but the means of supporting and organizing it. The proposed reconceptualization centers on a bi-directional interplay that examines in juxtaposition teachers’ learning in professional development and their practice in the classroom.