Teacher Practice

Problem solving is a central focus of mathematics teaching and learning. If teachers are expected to support students' problem-solving development, then it reasons that teachers should also be able to solve problems aligned to grade level content standards. The purpose of this validation study is twofold: (1) to present evidence supporting the use of the Problem Solving Measures Grades 3–5 with preservice teachers (PSTs), and (2) to examine PSTs' abilities to solve problems aligned to grades 3–5 academic content standards.

Problem solving is a central focus of mathematics teaching and learning. If teachers are expected to support students' problem-solving development, then it reasons that teachers should also be able to solve problems aligned to grade level content standards. The purpose of this validation study is twofold: (1) to present evidence supporting the use of the Problem Solving Measures Grades 3–5 with preservice teachers (PSTs), and (2) to examine PSTs' abilities to solve problems aligned to grades 3–5 academic content standards.

This study contributes to the growing body of research that highlights the usefulness of professional noticing of children’s mathematical thinking for understanding the complexity and variability in teaching expertise. We explored the noticing expertise of 72 upper elementary school teachers engaged in multi-year professional development focused on children’s fraction thinking. Our assessment addressed the three component skills of professional noticing of children’s mathematical thinking: (a) attending to children’s strategy details, (b) interpreting children’s understandings, and (c) deciding how to respond on the basis of children’s understandings.

In this study, we present a conceptual tool for guiding teachers’ principled pedagogical actions toward equitable instruction, referred to as the Transforming Science Learning (TSL) framework. The TSL framework was developed to address the challenges of enacting an ideological commitment in local contexts–promoting equity and justice through culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in K-12 science classrooms.

Formative assessment can facilitate teachers’ abilities to elicit and notice the disciplinary substance of students’ thinking and to respond based on this. Following a design-based process, we developed principled practical knowledge to create resources that might guide experienced teachers in examining their formative assessment practice and provide researchers with tools to study formative assessment enactment.

Teaching chemistry as a practice rather than as a mere collection of facts demands that teachers modify their practices, particularly their approach to formative assessment (FA). In this study, we investigated how teachers’ FA practices changed as a result of their participation in a professional development program designed with a Chemical Thinking perspective.

The effective use of formative assessment (FA) has been demonstrated to confer positive impacts on student learning. To understand why and how FA works, it is necessary to characterize teachers’ FA practices, but because both teaching practice and learning depend on the nature of the discipline, there are disciplinary aspects to examining this. This study aimed to develop an analysis of chemistry teachers’ FA practices through the lens of the chemical thinking framework.

Formative assessment is an important component of teaching as it enables teachers to foster student learning by uncovering, interpreting, and advancing student thinking. In this work, we sought to characterize how experienced chemistry teachers notice and interpret student thinking shown in written work, and how they respond to what they learn about it.

In this paper, we share the design and impact of a set of two-hour online mathematics professional development modules adapted from face-to-face video-based materials.

The tasks described in this chapter are intended to build connections between these real-world dangers of viral spread and some relevant topics from the secondary mathematics curriculum. We also explore a link between mathematical reasoning and media literacy—the ability to discern the commercial, ideological, or political motivations of media and the recognition that receivers negotiate the meaning of messages (Aufderheide, 1993)—so that, just as we know to take safety precautions with regard to an airborne coronavirus, we can also help our students learn to take precautions against the spread of misinformation on social media.