Improving Professional Development in Mathematics by Understanding the Mechanisms that Translate Teacher Learning into Student Learning

关于数学教师专业发展对教师教学数学知识的影响，已有很多研究。虽然一些专业发展计划显示出教师知识的有意义的变化，这些变化并不总是转化为教师实践的变化。本项目探讨教师将专业发展中学到的知识转化为教学实践的机制。本项目的目标是研究教师在专业发展（PD）过程中获得的知识和技能如何转化为更概念化的数学教学，进而提高学生的学习能力。该项目建立在一个有前途的视频为基础的PD，从事教师分析课堂数学教学的视频。以往的研究表明，教师谁可以分析教学的性质，学生所经历的数学学习机会往往教得更有效。研究人员的目标是更好地了解教师在发展这种专业能力时所遵循的道路，并将其转化为更雄心勃勃的教学，以支持更丰富的学生学习。缺乏对PD计划如何接触学生的了解是提高PD有效性的一个重要障碍。为了建立这种理解，研究人员的目标是测试和完善一个实施理论，指定教师面临的障碍，因为他们把他们的学习，他们的课堂教学和上下文的支持，帮助教师克服这些障碍。从了解影响PD效果的因素中吸取的经验教训将有助于教育工作者设计PD计划，最大限度地将教师学习转化为学生学习。该项目将招募和支持一批教师，4-5年级（n=40）和6-7年级（n=40），为期三年，以跟踪教师学习的增长，教学实践的变化和学生学习的增加。PD将连续三年全年提供。研究人员将专注于两个数学主题，第三个主题将被评估以衡量迁移效果。每年都会有几个课程分析周期，由受过培训的教练协助小规模的年级相似的小组，帮助教师将他们不断增长的分析技能转化为计划，实施和反思自己的课程。每年将分配更多的天数，以协助更多的教师群体发展教学内容知识，以分析教学。本研究主要探讨以下几个问题：1）教师从PD学习、课堂教学和学生学习之间的关系是什么，假设的中介变量如何影响这些关系，以及这些关系如何随着教师教学分析能力的提高而变化？2）教师如何描述他们认为影响他们学与教的障碍和支持，以及这些障碍和支持如何深化和拓展实施理论？考虑到数据的嵌套性质，将使用多层次建模来解决第一个问题，以测试一个假设教师学习和教学实践之间的直接和间接关系的模型，反过来，教学实践和学生学习。教师每年将对每个数学主题进行评估，评估内容包括教学技能分析、教学实践的使用以及学生的学习情况。聚类分析将被用来探讨在何种程度上学习分析一节课的数学，教学质量和学生成绩之间的关系可能是不同的教师的基础上测量的特征。纵向分析将用于检验假设路径模型中变量之间的理论关系。教师的数学知识的教学，课程计划，和教科书课程材料的使用将被检查作为教师学习和教学实践之间的可能中介变量。为了解决第二个研究问题，参与者将参加年度访谈，了解他们阻碍这项工作的因素，以及PD内外改善这些障碍的支持。定量分析将检验障碍和支持与教师学习和课堂教学的关系。通过定性分析，将进一步阐明将专业学习转化为实践的障碍和支持。这些障碍和支持，连同专业发展模式，将沿着传播到外地。探索研究preK-12计划（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源，模型和工具，显着提高preK-12学生和教师的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12项目中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究以及为拟议项目提供理论和经验依据的先前研究和开发工作的基础上。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A great deal is known about the effects of mathematics teacher professional development on teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching. While some professional development programs show meaningful changes in teacher knowledge, these changes do not always translate into changes in teacher practice. This project explores the mechanisms by which teachers translate what they learn from professional development into their teaching practice. The goal of this project is to study how the knowledge and skills teachers acquire during professional development (PD) translate into more conceptually oriented mathematics teaching and, in turn, into increased student learning. The project builds on a promising video-based PD that engages teachers in analyzing videos of classroom mathematics teaching. Previous research indicates that teachers who can analyze teaching by focusing on the nature of the mathematical learning opportunities experienced by students often teach more effectively. The researchers aim to better understand the path teachers follow as they develop this professional competency and translate it into more ambitious teaching that supports richer student learning. The lack of understanding of how a PD program can reach students is a significant barrier to improving the effectiveness of PD. To build this understanding, the researchers aim to test and refine an implementation theory that specifies the obstacles teachers face as they apply their learning to their classroom teaching and the contextual supports that help teachers surmount these obstacles. Lessons learned from understanding the factors that impact the effects of PD will help educators design PD programs that maximize the translation of teacher learning into student learning. The project will recruit and support a cohort of teachers, grades 4–5 (n=40) and grades 6–7 (n=40) for three years to trace growth in teacher learning, changes in teaching practices, and increases in student learning. The PD will be provided throughout the year for three consecutive years. The researchers will focus on two mathematics topics with a third topic assessed to measure transfer effects. Several cycles of lesson analysis will occur each year, with small grade-alike curriculum-alike groups assisted by trained coaches to help teachers translate their growing analysis skills into planning, implementing, and reflecting on their own lessons. Additional days will be allocated each year to assist the larger groups of teachers in developing pedagogical content knowledge for analyzing teaching. The research focuses on the following questions: 1) What are the relationships between teacher learning from PD, classroom teaching, and student learning, how do hypothesized mediating variables affect these relationships, and how do these relationships change as teachers become more competent at analyzing teaching?; and 2) How do teachers describe the obstacles and supports they believe affect their learning and teaching, and how do these obstacles and supports deepen and broaden the implementation theory? Multi-level modeling will be used to address the first question, taking into account for the nested nature of the data, in order to test a model that hypothesizes direct and indirect relationships between teacher learning and teaching practice and, in turn, teaching practice and student learning. Teachers will take assessments each year, for each mathematics topic, on the analysis of teaching skills, on the use of teaching practices, and on students’ learning. Cluster analysis will be used to explore the extent to which the relationship between learning to analyze the mathematics of a lesson, teaching quality, and student achievement may be different for different teachers based on measured characteristics. Longitudinal analysis will be used to examine the theoretical relationships among variables in the hypothesized path model. Teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching, lesson planning, and textbook curricular material use will be examined as possible mediating variables between teacher learning and teaching practice. To address the second research question, participants will engage in annual interviews about the factors they are obstacles to doing this work and about the supports within and outside of the PD that ameliorate these obstacles. Quantitative analyses will test the relationships between the obstacles and supports with teacher learning and classroom teaching. Through qualitative analyses, the obstacles and supports to translating professional learning into practice will be further articulated. These obstacles and supports, along with the professional development model, will be disseminated to the field. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.