Abstract
In a recent research and development project, I have led a team to create an innovative professional development (PD) program rooted in the constructivist-based, Student-Adaptive Pedagogy (AdPed). The program is innovative in that, coupled with a common focus on teachers’ own mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT), it promotes their (a) understanding and capacity to use a research-based, conceptual progression (focused on multiplicative and fractional reasoning) to assess students’ available concepts and (b) adaptation of goals and activities for students’ learning, so they bring forth, and transform, what students do know. We found that those latter two PD components are quite counter-intuitive for teachers, and thus set the PD to literally overhaul teachers’ mathematics teaching practices. To this end, the PD program consists of three, interrelated components: (1) at least two 5-day Summer Institutes (consecutive years), (2) a job-embedded component, called “Buddy-Pair,” which was adapted from the Japanese Lesson Study model, and (3) four, 2-hour workshops during the academic year, in which issues/challenges arising from the buddy-pairs’ own work are reflected upon and discussed by all math teachers in their respective school. In this Innovation Showcase session, I provide a glimpse into what AdPed means, some details (examples) of each PD component, and preliminary data measuring teacher shift toward AdPed. I then discuss key challenges facing teachers, as well as their educators, when promoting such a shift in public schools.
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
PD, AdaptivePedagogy, Constructivism, Counterintuitive, Multiplication, Fractions
