The first three days of the Advanced
Summer Institute occurred at the beginning of the summer and
the final two days near the end, as a follow-up. In the first
part, teachers participated again as learners in mathematical
experiences followed by focused reflective sessions. This time,
however, the experiences focused on algebra rather than
geometry and measurement, and they were designed around
activities derived from CMP and MiC units. In analyzing these experiences,
teachers focused mostly on the mathematical content and
curricular implications. This activity invited a rethinking of
the key ideas in algebra and, consequently, the main goals of
teaching algebra in middle school. Participants then read
articles on algebra and analyzed in depth at least one unit
from either the CMP or the MiC curricula. During the last two days of
the Advanced Summer Institute, participants presented their
analyses of the assigned units and discussed each curriculum
and the choices each represented in terms of mathematical
content, learning priorities and sequencing of activities.
During the following school year,
teachers implemented their chosen CMP or MiC unit.
The instructional materials themselves provided the main
support for these implementations. In most cases, a group of
teachers chose to work together on the same unit and thus
established a “study group” that met a few times
after school. At first, a mathematics teacher educator
facilitated these study groups, but the teachers eventually met
independently. Later in the project, after one school had
decided to adopt the CMP, its teachers continued to hold these
collaborative sessions as a way to support the use of this
curriculum.
Throughout the three years of the
project, a subgroup of teachers who had taken leadership roles
in their schools also participated in a monthly Leadership
Seminar. The facilitators organized activities in this seminar
in response to the needs of the participating lead teachers.
The activities were designed to expand the lead teachers’
personal understandings of school mathematics reform, to
improve teaching practices and to develop leadership skills.
For example, the group discussed a few cases of teaching
mathematics through inquiry in order to develop a shared
understanding of what characterizes such an instructional
approach. Later on, teachers’ need to rethink the
teaching and learning of geometry in middle school led to a
series of different group experiences, such as discussing
several articles, analyzing the units developed by NSF-funded
middle school curricula and hearing a presentation by a
research mathematician.
Facilitators organized additional
professional development opportunities in response to the needs
of smaller subgroups. For example, some meetings were held for
special education teachers only, in order to address issues
they had raised about their unique role and responsibilities.
New teachers were advised to observe their more experienced
colleagues’ classrooms regularly as a form of
professional development. Curriculum writing groups and
department meetings, often initiated and facilitated by the
lead teachers themselves, also occasionally became sites for
professional development.
Summary
The two examples of professional
development reported in this chapter support the claim we made
in the introduction to the monograph: There is no one model of
professional development that works for all. Rather,
professional development is about decision making in context.
At the same time, the creative solutions generated by the
projects described in this chapter suggest that professional
development providers and consumers can make informed decisions about the kinds of experiences mathematics
teachers need. Furthermore, those decisions should be made in
light of what we know works best to address specific goals or
teacher learning needs, however tentative that knowledge might
be. The remainder of the monograph is dedicated to uncover and
examine such knowledge.
