Nanette Seago

To position students as mathematically competent, middle grades mathematics teachers need easily accessible professional learning (PL), including opportunities to participate in discussions about both mathematics content and teaching practices. A Video in the Middle (VIM) based learning series, the Coherent Asynchronous Online Mathematics Teacher Professional Learning (PL) project will help address this need by producing (1) a refined version of the existing VIM design and development prototype and (2) an asynchronous, collaborative online learning series comprising ten 2.5-hour sessions that focus on positioning students as mathematically competent in representing and conceptualizing transformations-based similarity, slope, or linear functions.

While research has identified some features of professional development that impact teacher and student outcomes, there is still much mathematics education researchers do not know regarding which design features are most impactful to learning and how specific features of professional development connect to teacher learning. This project will investigate six prior NSF-funded professional development projects looking for features of the professional development associated with teacher uptake and learning, such as how the establishment of community or norms of collaboration support teachers’ long-term classroom practice.

This project will study the design and development of PD that supports teacher development and student learning, and provide accumulation of evidence to inform teacher educators, administrators, teachers, and policymakers of factors associated with successful PD experiences and variation across teachers and types of PDs. The study will examine teachers' uptake of mathematics content, pedagogy and materials from different types of professional development in order to understand and unpack the factors that are associated with what teachers take up and use two-three years beyond their original PD experience.

This project is creating five video-case modules for use in professional development of middle school mathematics teachers. The materials are designed to develop teachers' understanding of mathematics knowledge for teaching similarity. In total, 18-24 video cases will be produced, which, taken together, form the curriculum of a 45- to 60-hour professional development course.

This work focuses on a practical problem in mathematics education; supporting teacher professional development for algebra teaching. The project will design and develop a web-based form of professional development and teacher education for learning and teaching algebra in middle school.