One characteristic of high-quality mathematics teaching is supporting students in engaging in tasks of high cognitive demand. In this paper, we explore relationships between two elementary teachers' efforts to integrate computational thinking (CT) practices--abstraction, debugging, and decomposition--into their mathematics instruction and their…

Tutors play an important role in effective Mathematics Learning Support, and ensuring good initial training and development is key. Typically, in the UK and Ireland, tutors do not gain any formal recognition for the training they receive. This paper details a four competences model of training for tutors and presents the analysis of feedback from…

In this study, we introduce an analytic framework for effective professional development programmes (PDPs) that has been synthesised and derived from the literature. The framework acknowledges that certain design features concerning how to process the content as well as the methods to facilitate teachers' enactment are important but also…

A central goal of lesson-centered professional development programs (PD) for mathematics teachers is to learn by constructing an artifact, for example, by designing and improving a lesson plan together. That leads to the questions, what does it mean, for mathematics teachers, to improve a lesson? And how can improvements be accounted for in the…

Today's educational changes necessitate that teachers have a broad range of knowledge, values, skills, and competencies to provide effective instruction. Despite this, research on mathematics teachers' readiness for such changes is limited, particularly in terms of leveraging experienced teachers' implicit knowledge for peer learning. This…

Foundation and Year 1/2 teachers at Saint Martin de Porres Primary School, a Catholic School in Laverton, Melbourne have been collaborating with a team of researchers from Monash University on a four-year project led by Professor Peter Sullivan and colleagues. The teachers have been trialling and implementing a series of lesson sequences as part…

This qualitative study examined how prospective mathematics teachers attend to, interpret, and respond to student misconceptions through providing them a video-case-based professional development environment. A sample of 30 prospective teachers attending an elective course was asked to watch video cases about student misconceptions related to the…

This report is about how a group of U.S. teachers (N = 98) and researchers used a boundary object in a collective study of grades 6-8 mathematics instruction. The focus is the teachers' engagement with a framework for effective instructional practices. Using qualitative content analysis of teachers' responses to use of the framework, we assessed…

Many studies have documented a large decline in students' mathematics achievement during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The question facing school districts now is how to help students recover. Since fall 2020, RAND researchers have repeatedly surveyed and interviewed district leaders who are members of the American…

This research article contributes to the growing literature highlighting the potential for innovation in mathematics education through design cycles that involve creative risk-taking and failure-based learning. Specifically, we explore how "failed" cycles of Story"Circles"--a practice-based professional development approach…

This paper focuses on a professional development program for lower-secondary school mathematics teachers, led by mathematics education researchers, based on historical insights from Fibonacci's Liber Abbaci. The program, involving 25 teachers, emphasized using the history of mathematics to craft meaningful mathematical lessons on the topic of…

Background: Numerous studies show that active and engaging classrooms help students learn and persist in college, but adoption of new teaching practices has been slow. Professional development programs encourage instructors to implement new teaching methods and change the status quo in STEM undergraduate teaching, and structured observations of…

Conceptualized in France during the sixties, the Theory of Didactical Situations [TDS] is a pivotal framework for developing mathematics teaching and learning processes. Despite the increasing qualitative studies over the last ten years, there remains a dearth of analysis of its effects on mathematics education. Through a Grounded Formal Theory…

Our aim is to contribute to the body of research on learning trajectories (LTs) in mathematics by making visible a process for articulating a hypothetical learning trajectory implicit in a widely adopted, reform-based, middle-grades mathematics curriculum. In doing so, we highlight considerations, decisions, and challenges we faced as part of this…

Current researchers have not been clear on whether or not professional development expenditures, at the school district level, share any possible relationships with student achievement outcomes on state-level summative testing. While there are many articles and numerous research studies on the concept, they are very contradictory in their…