Abstract:
This study formed part of a professional development project working to enhance mathematics achievement and retention in schools in a low socio-economic region in Auckland, New Zealand. Over a period of two years teachers of senior mathematics classes from ten schools attended workshops and meetings. At eleven of the meetings mathematicians and statisticians from the University of Auckland's departments of Mathematics and Statistics gave talks on aspects of their academic work. These talks formed the basis of the intervention that is the focus of this study. The aim of the study was to determine whether, when put in the position of encountering unfamiliar mathematics, teachers would re-view their understanding of learning, and what the results of this experience would be for their understanding of students learning needs and their teaching. In the workshops prompts and questions encouraged the teachers to discuss learning and teaching. It was hypothesised that this could lead to teachers becoming more open to considering change in their practice. A framework was developed in order to categorise the teacher talk that constituted the data. Measured against this framework the data showed that the intervention was effective in encouraging approximately 40% of the group of 31 teachers who attended one or more workshops to consider or enact change in their practice. The data was re-examined at a deeper level seeking to establish how and why the teachers responded as they did. On the basis of this a model of the processes and outcomes of teacher learning in the intervention was developed. This analysis showed that three strands of experience encouraged teachers to consider change in their practice: being re-energised for teaching through being mathematically stimulated; coming to realisations about teaching through introspection and identification with students as learners; and discussing teaching within a supportive learning community. A number of factors and contexts that impacted on teachers' responses to the intervention were identified.
