Mathematics teachers’ professional development in a practice-base development program

Abstract

Mathematics teachers’ professional development in a practice-based development program

How can a practice-based development program contribute to the professional development of mathematics teachers? And how can such development be facilitated and supported? Despite an extensive body of research on teacher professional development (PD), effectively designing and conducting PD programs that yield enduring improvements in teacher practice and student learning remains a challenge.

The research field call for more knowledge about the circumstances and conditions influencing teachers’ PD, along with the knowledge and competencies required by leaders and facilitators to support the PD of mathematics teachers. This issue is particularly relevant in the Norwegian context, where the government introduced a decentralized model for school competence development in 2017. Further insight into these matters can pave the way for the new competence development model to significantly enhance schools’ local ownership of development work, and simultaneously elevate teachers’ learning outcomes.

While existing studies on mathematics teachers’ PD primarily concentrate on the teacher(s) and their growth, this study focuses on the actors involved in practice-based PD programs, here exemplified by the “Mastering Ambitious Mathematics Teaching” program. It explores how these actors’ actions and interactions, as well as their roles, influence and are influenced by each other. This study contributes novel insights by capturing the multilevel and cross-institutional dynamics involving the program’s actors.

Using a case study approach, I followed the mathematics teachers and the principal from a participating lower secondary school, and the teacher educators leading the program throughout the first year of the program period, the school year 2019–2020. The findings reveal diverse and sometimes contradictory perceptions of key program concepts among the actors, and different goals and motives for participation. The study also indicates that a culture and practice of development was absent in the school.

Given the local contextual variations and individual goals in each participating school, the thesis argues for investing time and space to share perceptions and expectations in the start-up phase of a PD work. This also involves aligning and negotiating on motives and goals. Then, opportunities must be created to share these motives and goals with program leaders for further negotiation into a partially shared object.

Also, the thesis claims that principals should develop distributed leadership practices that support teachers’ ongoing development work at school. Such leadership practices can prevent teachers from being left alone when implementing new ideas into their own practice in their own classrooms. The accomplishment of these suggestions relies on interaction and dialogue among the actors, serving as the foundation for enabling practice-based PD programs to contribute to the PD of mathematics teachers.