Changing Teachers' Attitudes and Practices Through Professional Development
This paper focuses on the partnership's efforts to enhance student motivation and
achievement by improving teachers' attitudes toward and use of reform practices--i.e.,
those consistent with the recommendations of Principles and Standards for School
Mathematics (NCTM 2000). The practices are student-centered, and contain the
following characteristics:
1) Instructional scaffolding is provided for students
that allows them to move from what they know to what they do not know (Ladson-Billings,
1995; Carpenter, Fennema, Franke, Levi, & Empson, 1999; Carpenter, Franke, Levi,
2003); and 2) Teachers use a variety of ways for students to explore curriculum content, a
wide selection of sense-making activities or processes through which students can come to
understand and "own" information and ideas, and many options through which
students can demonstrate or exhibit what they have learned (Tomlinson, 1995; Haberman,
1992; Senk & Thompson, 2003).
Furthermore, the professional development
activities in TEAM-Math are based on best practices (Loucks-Horsley et al., 2003; Borasi
and Fonzi, 2002). A cohort-based model is used, in which teachers at a school enter the
professional development as a group. Together, they experience a two-week and a one-week
summer institute, quarterly follow-up meetings Saturday mornings throughout the school
year, a menu of other special workshops and events, and school-based activities focused on
developing professional communities of practice (Wenger 1999).
Teachers'
content knowledge is enhanced through examination of exemplary curriculum materials and
solution of "adult mathematics problems." Moreover, teachers are challenged to reconsider
their beliefs about who can be successful in mathematics in accordance with the Equity
Principle (NCTM 2000) in order to address variable expectations and levels of support for
different groups of students.
Previous analyses of data from the TEAM-Math project
have shown that multiple aspects of students' motivation as well as academic achievement
are enhanced when students perceive their teachers applying reform instructional practices
in the classroom (Strutchens et al., in press). In this analysis, we report on analyses
focusing on how teacher participation in professional development is related to teacher
attitudes toward and use of reform practices in their classrooms. Our hypothesis is that
increased participation in the project, both during each year and accumulating across
years, will lead to changes in both teachers' attitudes toward, and use in the classroom
of, practices aligned with Principles and Standards and advocated by the project
as improving mathematics achievement for all students.
