Mathematics Teacher Education and Development

Mathematics Teachers’ Use of Content-specific Data for Dialogic Grouping

Rotem Abdu, Shai Olsher — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +1000

Group composition affects learning by individuals. Dialogic pedagogy approaches demonstrate that this is particularly true when each grouped student knows something others do not (i.e., mutuality grouping). Learning analytics can help grouping by providing teachers with data on students’ content-specific learning. What are mathematics teachers’ considerations in grouping students based on such data? We analysed fifty-three acts of grouping by nine mathematics teachers, who used data about students’ solutions to a mathematical task on linear functions to group students into pairs. We propose a schematic model including two types of considerations: interpersonal (here, mutuality, encompassing, and similarity) and content-specific (here, methods of construction, function orientation, and correctness). In this study, encompassing was the leading interpersonal characteristic, and function orientation was the leading content-specific characteristic. Moreover, different teachers formed the same groups using various considerations. The teachers utilised learning analytics to group students, and we modelled their grouping considerations.

Cultivating Elementary Mathematics Specialist Expertise

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +1000

This study explored elementary teachers’ (N = 26) development as novice Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMSs). They worked in 21 urban-situated schools in the United States that served historically marginalised students. Professional learning experiences aimed to prepare them as effective and equitable mathematics teachers and teacher leaders equipped to serve as a more knowledgeable other in their school communities. Their role as EMSs was distinctive because their primary responsibility was teaching students, and their work as a teacher leader was in an informal capacity. A case study design was used, with quantitative and qualitative data forming the descriptive findings. Across two years of professional learning, participants had meaningful improvements in their implementation of learner-centred, equitable mathematics instruction; mathematical knowledge for teaching; and productive mathematics beliefs. Results from interview data illuminated these shifts, with themes related to: centring of children, elevating equity and access, deepening knowledge for teaching, and navigating constraints in shifting instruction.

"I Don't Understand the Purpose of This Experience”: Tensions in Collaborative, Process-oriented Professional Development for Mathematics Teachers

Gil Schwarts, Patricio Herbst, Amanda M. Brown — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +1000

Mathematics teachers' professional learning is moving away from prescriptive professional development (PD) toward collaborative, practice-based models—such as video-clubs and lesson co-design—which provide teachers with space and time to discuss problems of practice among peers. Some models, which we term "process-oriented", exclusively focus on fostering teachers’ professional discourse and reflection rather than pushing for the implementation of specific classroom practices. Although research has documented the affordances of process-oriented teacher learning, less is known about the complexities involved. This multi-perspective qualitative study describes tensions surfaced by teachers and a facilitator in an online lesson-design programme in the United States. We identify two core tensions: valuing collaboration and relating to the programme’s process-oriented aims, and we trace these tensions to participants’ prior PD and classroom experiences, showing how implicit expectations about PD processes and outcomes shape participants' engagement with innovative learning opportunities. These findings contribute to the field's understanding of collaborative and process-oriented teacher learning by highlighting the presence of a didactical contract within in-service teacher learning contexts, which resonates with the classroom didactical contract. We posit that recognising and addressing teachers' implicit expectations is essential for designing PD that is not only innovative in form but also responsive to practitioners.