Promoting Content-related Facilitator Expertise: Facilitator Professional Development Approach in the QuaMath Program
Keywords:
mathematics facilitator preparation, pedagogical content knowledge for PD (PCK-PD), activities at two levels, professional development, professional development facilitation, teacher professional developmentAbstract
In scaled-up professional development programs for teachers, the sessions are mainly conducted by facilitators who were not part of the original design team. The quality of teacher professional development (TPD), therefore, relies on facilitator preparation and ongoing support, enabling them to develop expertise with respect to the content and concepts included. Whereas relevant components of facilitator expertise have been unpacked theoretically and empirically from different perspectives, reports on the designs of facilitator professional development (FPD) programs aimed at promoting such expertise are still rare. In this article, we report on one FPD program which was designed and enacted within the nationwide ten-year implementation program QuaMath (Developing Quality of Mathematics Classrooms and Teacher PD) for 515 mathematics facilitators in different age groups (K–1, 1–4, 5–10, 11–13). We present the FPD approach, including its overall goals for mathematics content-related facilitator expertise, its macro design in terms of structural and institutional characteristics, and its micro design through typical FPD activities. We take this program as a case to argue that fostering pedagogical content knowledge for professional development requires a systematic combination of work at both levels: the classroom and the TPD level.
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