Abstract:

The main purpose of this study is to explore the practices of ambitious teaching that participants in the Algebra For All micro-credential courses at a teacher preparation program in New York City are developing and to track how these in service teachers reason and work with these practices as they travel to their classrooms.

In designing the Algebra For All micro-credential sequence of courses we aimed to support teachers in their development of “ambitious teaching” skills. Ambitious teaching requires that teachers make moves and decisions in response to what students do as they engage in high level mathematical problem solving, all while holding students accountable to learning standards that include procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, and productive dispositions. We built in our courses ample opportunities to experiment with pedagogies of enactment through which teachers are supported in actually doing the practice of teaching within the context of the coursework. These opportunities include teaching experiments, clinical interviews, lesson studies, action research and they target teachers’ planning, trying out, analyzing reflecting upon, revising and differentiating mathematical instruction tasks.

The aim of this study is to understand the multidirectional influences between teachers’ participation in the Algebra For All micro-credentials and their classroom settings. We also analyze the barriers that may be hindering the enactment of ambitious teaching practices in their schools.

We constructed and sent out a questionnaire to all teachers who participated in the program to identify their perceptions of the elements of ambitious teaching offered in the program and their evaluation of the enactment in their schools. To better understand the barriers to this enactment we worked with a group of 10 teachers representing all the cohorts and engaged them with online reflection activities and two targeted focus groups.

We share here the results of this study and discuss implications for the Algebra For All program evaluation, courses improvement and offer insights on the multidirectionality between the contexts of teacher professional development and their school settings.

Keywords:

Teacher Education, In Service Teachers, Mathematics Education, Ambitious Teaching, Professional Development.