Resources that preservice and inservice teachers offer in collaborative analysis of student thinking

Abstract

This study examines a professional development (PD) program, set in a summer mathematics program for middle grades students with a research-based curriculum, where preservice and inservice teachers collaborated in interpreting and responding to student thinking. We investigated the resources that participants contributed to this collaboration, and the opportunities the nontraditional PD setting afforded for the sharing of these resources. Our embedded case study consisted of two classes, where participants taught and then engaged in video-recorded debriefing sessions each day. Their discussions focused on what they noticed in class and how they responded in the moment or anticipated responding in future lessons. We find that participants’ observations from class catalyzed the sharing of resources, both from the program and from outside experiences, that contributed to the analysis of student thinking.