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1. Building “Small Worlds” in online professional development with evidence-based noticing and wondering

   Matranga, A.; Silverman, J. (October 2021, Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of PME-NA)

   Olanoff, D.; Johnson, K.; Spitzer, S.M. (Ed.)

   Understanding how to design online professional development environments that support mathematics teachers in developing mathematical and pedagogical knowledge is more important than ever. We argue that productive social and sociomathematical (SM) norms have benefits for teachers learning mathematics in online asynchronous collaboration and that particular patterns in interactions can create context for the emergence of such norms. We employed social network analysis to compare the emerging social networks of two iterations of an online asynchronous professional development course focused on functions to understand whether particular scaffolds can support the emergence of specific patterns of interactions. Results suggest that evidence-based noticing and wondering can impact the “small world” properties of a social network and associated potential for the emergence of social and SM norms. 

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2. Understanding how context impacts teacher learning: Three PDs and three sites.

   Koellner, K. (January 2021, Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Psychology of Mathematics Education North America.)

   M. Inprasita, N. Changsri (Ed.)

   The study presented here utilized a cross case comparison of three different professional development programs to examine the contextual factors associated with uptake related to what teachers learned related to content, pedagogy and the resources used in their professional development (PD) workshops. From a theoretical perspective this study draws on a situative perspective to guide our analyses on how uptake across different PD projects located in different geographical contexts impacted teacher learning. Findings indicate that teachers’ perceptions of learning may be associated with explicit goals and intentions of the PD program and the relevance to their everyday work in mathematics classrooms. Differences were found to be related to where they fell on the adaptive-specified continuum. 

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3. Building Collaborative Networks of STEM Educators: Can an Online Workshop Replace the In-Person Experience?

   Engleman, S. (January 2023, American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL)

   For many programs, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift from in-person workshops to a virtual format. Using a mixed methods approach with data gleaned from feedback forms and a novel pre/post social network analysis (SNA) survey, this paper examines the merits of using online vs. in-person professional development workshops to build collaborative networks of STEM instructors. A series of biomolecular visualization workshops served as our case study, and participant perceptions in online and in-person workshops were compared and contrasted across a variety of metrics. The findings suggest that online workshops present new opportunities for the future of collaboration. Rather than a temporary stop-gap measure, virtual collaborations can increase content knowledge and foster a sense of community. 

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4. Workshops and Co-design Can Help Teachers Integrate Computational Thinking into Their K-12 STEM Classes

   Wu, S.; Peel, A.; Bain, C.; Anton, G.; Horn, M.; Wilensky, U. (April 2020, Proceedings of International Conference on Computational Thinking Education 2020)

   Kong, S.C. (Ed.)

   This work aims to help high school STEM teachers integrate computational thinking (CT) into their classrooms by engaging teachers as curriculum co-designers. K-12 teachers who are not trained in computer science may not see the value of CT in STEM classrooms and how to engage their students in computational practices that reflect the practices of STEM professionals. To this end, we developed a 4-week professional development workshop for eight science and mathematics high school teachers to co-design computationally enhanced curriculum with our team of researchers. The workshop first provided an introduction to computational practices and tools for STEM education. Then, teachers engaged in co-design to enhance their science and mathematics curricula with computational practices in STEM. Data from surveys and interviews showed that teachers learned about computational thinking, computational tools, coding, and the value of collaboration after the professional development. Further, they were able to integrate multiple computational tools that engage their students in CT-STEM practices. These findings suggest that teachers can learn to use computational practices and tools through workshops, and that teachers collaborating with researchers in co-design to develop computational enhanced STEM curriculum may be a powerful way to engage students and teachers with CT in K-12 classrooms. 

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5. A Broad Doorway to the Big Tent: A Four-Strand Model for Discipline-Based Faculty Development on Inquiry-Based Learning

   https://doi.org/10.1080/10511970.2022.2072427  

   Yoshinobu, Stan; Jones, Matthew G.; Hayward, Charles N.; Schumacher, Carol; Laursen, Sandra L. (April 2022, PRIMUS)

   Faculty professional development is an important lever for change in supporting instructors to adopt research-based instructional strategies that engage students intellectually, foster learning-supportive attitudes and habits of mind, and strengthen their persistence in mathematics. Yet the literature contains few well-rationalized models for faculty development in higher education. We describe the rationale and design for a model for discipline-based faculty development to support instructional change, and we detail our implementation of this model as applied to intensive workshops on inquiry-based learning (IBL) in college mathematics. These workshops seek to foster post-secondary mathematics instructors’ adoption of IBL, to help them adapt inquiry approaches for their classrooms, and ultimately to increase student learning and persistence in science and mathematics. Based on observed faculty needs, four strands of activity help instructors develop a mental model for an IBL classroom, adapt that model to their teaching context, develop facilitation and task-design skills, and plan an IBL mathematics course. Evaluation data from surveys and observations illustrate participant responses to the workshop and its components. The model has been robust across 15 years of workshops implemented by three generations of workshop leaders and its features make it adaptive, strategic, and practical for other faculty developers. 

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