Patricio Herbst

Professional Title
Associate Professor of Mathematics Education
Organization/Institution
University of Michigan (UM)
About Me (Bio)
Pat Herbst is a mathematics educator interested in classroom mathematical work, instructional practices, the justifications of teachers’ actions, and the development of teacher capabilities. With project ThEMaT (funded by the National Science Foundation), Herbst pioneered the use of animated sketches of classroom stories to prompt discussions about instruction among teachers, in which they disclose the rationality that animates their work. In subsequent projects Herbst and his associates have designed software tools that enable teachers to interact with representations of classroom stories. He is now involved in an the development of instruments that can assess teachers’ knowledge and rationality in the context of problems of practice represented via classroom sketches.
Keywords
Geometry

Developing Rich Media-Based Materials for Practice-Based Teacher Education

University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP)
08/15/2013

This research and development project is premised on the notion that recent technological developments have made it feasible to represent classroom work in new ways. In addition to watching recorded videos of classroom interactions or reading written cases, teacher educators and teachers can now watch animations and image sequences, realized with cartoon characters, and made to depict activities that happened, or could have happened, in a mathematics classroom.

Examining an Online, International Exchange Professional Development Program for High School Teachers

University of Michigan (UM)
08/01/2022

This project aims to elaborate a structure for practice-oriented, collaborative professional development that increases the capacities for collaborative learning by facilitating teacher-to-teacher interactions within and across cultural contexts. By convening international groups of teachers to design lessons and provide and respond to commentaries on their lesson designs, the project introduces possibilities for surfacing and disrupting common experiences, assumptions, and norms in US mathematics teaching.

Supports for Learning to Manage Classroom Discussions: Exploring the Role of Practical Rationality and Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching

University of Michigan (UM), University of Maryland (UMD)
09/01/2009

This project focuses on practicing and preservice secondary mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators. The project is researching, designing, and developing materials for preservice secondary mathematics teachers that enable them to acquire the mathematical knowledge and situated rationality central to teaching, in particular as it regards the leading of mathematical discussions in classrooms.

ThEMaTe: Thought Experiments in Mathematics Teaching

University of Michigan (UM)
08/01/2004

This project seeks to understand the practical rationality that undergirds teachers’ actions as they meet subject-specific goals of the teaching of algebra and geometry. The study develops a collection of representations of teaching that showcase possible classroom episodes and allows practitioners to ponder alternatives in teaching. The representations are built on computer animations and other forms of sequential art that display action over time.