Abstract:

Due to the well-established relationship between high-quality professional learning (PL) and student achievement, substantial global investments have been made to design and implement PL models aimed at improving student learning in mathematics education. Researchers have identified core features of effective PL, including active learning, content focus, coherence and collaboration. However, far less is known about how designers of PL projects interpret these principles, translate them to concrete plans, and navigate the complexities of implementation across diverse contexts. This study addresses that gap by examining designers’ decision-making processes and implementation strategies across six different mathematics PL projects. The goal is to explicate the mechanisms through which research-based professional learning frameworks are operationalized and adapted in practice. This study was guided by the following research question: How do designers of mathematics professional learning projects conceptualize, design and enact professional learning to support meaningful changes in teaching and learning?

As part of a larger project, we collected data from six large-scale PL programs that were funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. While each of these professional learning models focused on fostering mathematics teaching and learning, they varied considerably in their goals, structures, and uses of technology. Distinct features of these projects include technology-mediated online programs, mathematics teachers collaborating on lesson plans internationally using annotation tools, video observation tools focused on teacher movement, and innovative problem-solving approaches that support teachers’ use of mathematical practices.

This study focused on semi-structured interviews conducted with the principal investigators of all six projects two to five years after initial implementation of their PL projects. Each participant engaged in two hour-long interviews focused on the design, enactment and evolution of their projects. Interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed using a thematic analysis to identify patterns in how designers conceptualized teacher learning, structured PL experiences, and navigated challenges.

Preliminary findings suggest that despite considerable variation in PL content and format, designers shared core principles that shaped their decision making throughout the design and implementation process. Across cases, designers deliberately centered community and professional discourse, positioned student thinking as the primary object of inquiry and embedded structures to support deep professional noticing. Designers operationalized these principles in ways that were responsive to the needs of participants and their contexts. These initial findings can offer insights into how research-informed design principles are interpreted, enacted and sustained in diverse mathematics education settings. They also have implications for PL designers and policy makers seeking to scale and sustain high quality PL for educators across a wide range of settings.

Keywords:

Mathematics Education, Professional Learning.