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Bridging Professional Development
In this project, we are designing, implementing, and studying a new form of professional development—Bridging PD—that will provide teachers with specific methods for applying newly learned mathematics to their classroom practices, bridging a gap between knowing and doing. We will focus particularly on working with teachers of primarily underserved student populations.
To teach mathematics for understanding, teachers must, of course, have a deep understanding of mathematics themselves. Over the past ten years, mathematics educators have developed effective ways to help teachers acquire this understanding. But applying that new knowledge within well established classroom routines is not easy. To help build this bridge, we will help teachers develop a structured way of reasoning about classroom decisions, calling on math content knowledge along with teachers' already established wisdom of practice.
This exploratory study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to establish if and how this Bridging PD works. Partnering with the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, we are preparing for an impact study with randomized experimental design with 40 teachers in the Oakland, CA area. University of Texas at Austin is also a partner.
This 3-year project is funded by the National Science Foundation through its Teacher Professional Continuum program.
8/2005 - 8/2009 (past)
Funders & Clients
Partners
University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Hall of Science- University of Texas, Austin
Research Areas
Learning Environments
Teacher Learning