Mathematics teacher change in a collaborative environment: to what extent and how

Abstract

This article reports on a study into how collaborative contexts influence the professional development of an early-career primary teacher, Julia. We describe the process of change by which Julia manages to make her planning to teach mathematics more flexible so as to adapt to student difficulties, and we analyse the role that joint reflection plays in promoting this change. In order to understand the how of this influence, we carried out an analysis of the interactions within the group from Julia's point of view, following a dialogical approach to discourse. We believe that it is in and through the interactions that Julia constructs her interpretation of the opinions, critiques and suggestions expressed. This interpretation conditions the extent of her involvement and moulds the influence of the context on her professional development. The presence of skilled collaborators (Day, 1993) proved decisive in promoting this development.KEY WORDS: professional development, teacher change, collaborative environments, early-career primary teacher, interactions, dialogical approach to discourse, mathematics education.

ICME international survey on teachers working and learning through collaboration: June 2016

“…Some teachers, for example, learned to listen to, and value, the views of others over time (e.g. Muñoz-Catalán et al 2010a). Some claims refer to joint work, developing in accordance with the views of the community as they work together, such as reported by Menezes (2011), who states that "[t]he study shows that teachers develop professionally, manifest developments in their forms of collaboration in the group from providing aid and assistance to joint work, and in parallel deepen their teaching knowledge and professional practices" (p. 225).…”

The development of teachers’ expertise through their analysis of good practice in the mathematics classroom

“…To analyse the dynamic of the interactions within the group may help to characterise the conditions which bring about professional development like that observed in the PIC. The recent work of the group has been along these lines (Muñoz-Catalán et al, 2010). This paper has explored the topic of the development of expertise, following suggestions by Kaiser and Li (2011) of directions for future research.…”

“…This is best achieved when practice and understanding mutually reinforce each other (Krainer, 1999;Climent, 2005), and there is a commitment to reflecting on one's own practice (Jaworski, 1998) such that reflection becomes both the measure and the means of development. The teacher progressively recognises a fuller, more complex picture of practice involving an increased number of factors to which their classroom performance becomes attuned (Muñoz-Catalán et al, 2010). Our approach shares some features with those outlined by Sherin et al (2000), specifically the cognitive modelling approach, focusing on the classroom teaching process, and the knowledge system approach, focusing on knowledge components.…”

“…InMuñoz-Catalán et al (2010) we deal with the role of interactions between the PIC members. 5 Contributions by the researchers are labelled R1 and R2 (the novice researcher was unable to attend these PIC sessions); those of the teachers are labelled A, B, C (for Carmen) and so on.…”

The mathematics teacher’s specialised knowledge (MTSK) model*

“…We have explored the conditions for promoting development, change and professional expertise, ensuring throughout that our work is anchored to the collaborative relations with the teachers (both primary and secondary) in the group (PIC) (Muñoz-Catalán, Carrillo, & Climent, 2010).…”