The Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice asks students to look for and make use of structure. Hence, mathematics teacher educators need to prepare teachers to support students’ structural reasoning. In this article, we present tasks and rubrics designed and validated to characterize teachers’ structural reasoning for the purposes of professional development. Initially, tasks were designed and improved using interviews and small pilot studies. Next, we gave written structure tasks to over 600 teachers in two countries and developed and validated rubrics to categorize responses. Our work contributes to the preparation and support of mathematics teachers as they develop their own structural reasoning and their ability to help students develop structural reasoning.
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Stacy Musgrave, Cameron Byerley, Neil Hatfield, Surani Joshua, and Hyunkyoung Yoon
F. Paul Wonsavage
In this article, I share a design-based research intervention meant to help mathematics district leaders build their capacity to engage with research quality. I present my design (i.e., principles, key features, and intervention structure) and elaborate on how the features of the design allowed for mathematics district leaders’ sensemaking of educational research quality, especially regarding the process for collecting data and research implications. I conclude with recommendations for mathematics teacher educators on how they might adapt my design to their contexts.
Gülseren Karagöz Akar, Merve Saraç, and Mervenur Belin
In this study, we investigated prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ development of a meaning for the Cartesian form of complex numbers by examining the roots of quadratic equations through quantitative reasoning. Data included transcripts of the two sessions of classroom teaching experiments prospective teachers participated in, written artifacts from these teaching sessions, and their answers to pre-and-post written assessment questions. Results point toward prospective teachers’ improved meanings regarding the definition of complex numbers and the algebraic and geometrical meanings of the Cartesian form of complex numbers. Implications for mathematics teacher education include providing specific tasks and strategies for strengthening the knowledge of prospective and in-service teachers.
Hannah Nieman, Kara Jackson, Michael Jarry-Shore, Hilda Borko, Elham Kazemi, Starlie Chinen, Anita Lenges, Zuhal Yilmaz, and Cara Haines
Despite the complexity of facilitating professional development (PD) and growing attention to supporting facilitators, few tools exist for facilitators to engage in ongoing inquiry into their practice. In this article, we offer a practical measure, the Collaborative Professional Development Survey (CPDS), designed to provide facilitators with information about teachers’ perceptions of aspects of the PD learning environment that research indicates matter for teachers’ opportunities to learn. We illustrate how facilitators used the CPDS to support their collective inquiry into facilitation. We also illustrate the social processes that appeared to enable facilitators’ productive use of the CPDS, including a routine to analyze the resulting data, and the orientations that underpinned their analysis. We discuss implications for facilitators’ use of the CPDS.
Pamela A. Seda
Ear to the Ground features voices from several corners of the mathematics education world.
Sharon B. Hoffert and Introduction by: Candies Cook
From the Archives highlights articles from NCTM’s legacy journals, previously discussed by the MTLT Journal Club.
Sarah Quebec Fuentes
Ear to the Ground features voices from several corners of the mathematics education world.
Tara M. Willging and Luciana C. de Oliveira
A monolingual English-speaking teacher reflects on her experiences practicing a translanguaging stance in first grade with two multilingual learners and provides a set of guiding principles.
Travis Lemon and Scott Hendrickson
A robust framework can support teachers and their students’ learning.
Sarah Stecher, Luke Wilcox, and Lindsey Gallas
The EFFL model empowers students to build strong conceptual understanding of mathematics through carefully designed, equity-minded activities that disrupt the traditional lecture-based classroom.
