Designing Rehearsals for Secondary Mathematics Teachers to Refine Practice

Abstract

In this article, we describe rehearsals designed for use in professional development (PD) with secondary mathematics teachers to support them in reimagining and refining their practice. We detail a theoretical framework for learning in PD that informs our rehearsal design. We then share evidence of secondary mathematics teachers’ improvements in classroom practice from a broader study examining their participation in a PD that featured the use of rehearsals and provide examples of the ways two teachers’ rehearsals of the practice of monitoring students’ engagement with mathematics corresponded to changes in their practice. We conclude with a set of considerations and revisions to our design and a discussion of the role of mathematics teacher educators in supporting teachers in expanding their practice toward more ambitious purposes for students’ mathematical learning.