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1. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR GEOMETRY TEACHERS TO IMPROVE A LESSON? A MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS

   Schwarts, Gil; Jeon, Jeon; Herbst, Patricio; Brown, Amanda (October 2023, Proceedings of the 45th Conference of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)

   A central goal of lesson-centered professional development programs (PD) for mathematics teachers is to learn by constructing an artifact, for example, by designing and improving a lesson plan together. That leads to the questions, what does it mean, for mathematics teachers, to improve a lesson? And how can improvements be accounted for in the analysis of the resulting artifacts, especially when these are multimodal? This paper lays the groundwork for answering such questions by drawing on empirical data from a lesson-centered PD program for secondary geometry teachers. We show how semiotic choices were made to convey that the teacher would need to support students when geometry instruction moves from a construction task to a proof, by (1) addressing students’ confusion; and (2) creating a shared language to discuss diagrams. We relate these findings to teachers’ professional growth and the conference theme. 

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2. On the Development of Cybersecurity and Computing Centric Professional Developments and the Subsequent Implementation of Topics in K12 Lesson Plans (RTP)

   Robins, Andey; Burrows, Andrea C.; Borowczak, Mike (August 2022, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   In recent years, Wyoming has developed Computer Science (CS) standards for adoption and use within K-12 classrooms. These standards, adopted in January of 2022, go into effect for the 2022-2023 school year. The University of Wyoming has offered two different computer science week-long professional developments for teachers. Many K-12 teachers do not have a CS background, so developing CS lessons plans can be a challenge in these PDs.This research study is centered around three central questions: 1) To what extent did K-12 teachers integrate computing topics into their PD created lesson plans; 2) How do the teacher perceptions from the two CS PDs compare to each other; and 3) How was the CS PD translated to classroom activity? The first PD opportunity (n=14), was designed to give hands-on learning with CS topics focused on cybersecurity. The second PD opportunity (n=28), focused on integrating CS into existing curricula. At the end of each of these PDs, teacher K-12 teachers incorporated CS topics into their selected existing lesson plan(s). Additionally, a support network was implemented to support excellence in CS education throughout the state. This research study team evaluated the lesson plans developed during each PD event, by using a rubric on each lesson plan. Researchers collected exit surveys from the teachers. Implementation metrics were also gathered, including, how long each lesson lasted, how many students were involved in the implementation, what grades the student belonged to, the basic demographics of the students, the type of course the lesson plan was housed in, if the K-12 teacher reached their intended purpose, what evidence the K-12 teacher had of the success of their lesson plan, data summaries based on supplied evidence, how the K-12 teachers would change the lesson, the challenges and successes they experienced, and samples of student work. Quantitative analysis was basic descriptive statistics. Findings, based on evaluation of 40+ lessons, taught to over 1500 K-12 students, indicate that when assessed on a three point rubric of struggling, emerging, or excellent - certain components (e.g., organization, objectives, integration, activities & assessment, questions, and catch) of K-12 teacher created lessons plans varied drastically. In particular, lesson plan organization, integration, and questions each had a significant number of submissions which were evaluated as "struggling" [45%, 46%, 41%] through interesting integration, objectives, activities & assessment, and catch all saw submissions which were evaluated as "excellent" [43%, 48%, 43%, 48%]. The relationship between existing K-12 policies and expectations surfaces within these results and in combination with other findings leads to implications for the translation of current research practices into pre-collegiate PDs. 

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3. Integrating Computational Thinking Within and Across Disciplines in the Context of Teacher Professional Development

   Nolte, A.; Mead, H.; Mouza, C.; Rolon-Dow, R; Pollock, L. (January 2023, Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference)

   Teachers’ lack of computer science (CS) content knowledge and limited opportunities to incorporate CS in existing curricula pose unique challenges at the elementary level. Despite the crucial role of professional development (PD) in preparing elementary school teachers to integrate CS in classroom instruction, there is little research documenting PD programs that focus on integration in literacy and mathematics when compared to other subject areas. In this work, we present a PD program that integrates CS with disciplinary content to support teachers as they integrate CS with literacy and mathematics in elementary school classrooms. Using data from multiple sources, we present findings from two case studies to examine the impact of the PD on teachers’ integration of CS with content in lesson planning and implementation. Findings have implications related to the integration of CS in elementary school and teacher professional development. 

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4. Teacher learning to teach mathematics via reasoning and proving: a discursive analysis of lesson plans modifications

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1154531  

   Weingarden, Merav; Buchbinder, Orly (August 2023, Frontiers in Education)

   Christiansen, I (Ed.)

   Despite the importance of reasoning and proving in mathematics and mathematics education, little is known about how future teachers become proficient in integrating reasoning and proving in their teaching practices. In this article, we characterize this aspect of prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ (PSTs’) professional learning by drawing upon the commognitive theory. We offer a triple-layer conceptualization of (student)learning,teaching, andlearning to teachmathematics via reasoning and proving by focusing on the discourses students participate in (learning), the opportunities for reasoning and proving afforded to them (teaching), and how PSTs design and enrich such opportunities (learning to teach). We explore PSTs’ pedagogical discourse anchored in the lesson plans they designed, enacted, and modified as part of their participation in a university-based course:Mathematical Reasoning and Proving for Secondary Teachers. We identified four types of discursive modifications: structural, mathematical, reasoning-based, and logic-based. We describe how the potential opportunities for reasoning and proving afforded to students by these lesson plans changed as a result of these modifications. Based on our triple-layered conceptualization we illustrate how the lesson modifications and the resulting alterations to student learning opportunities can be used to characterize PSTs’ professional learning. We discuss the affordances of theorizing teacher practices with the same theoretical lens (grounded in commognition) to inquire student learning and teacher learning, and how lesson plans, as a proxy of teaching practices, can be used as a methodological tool to better understand PSTs’ professional learning. 

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5. Impact of Lesson Design on Teacher and Student Mathematical Questions

   Singh, R.; Nieves, H. I.; Barno, E.; & Dietiker, L. (January 2021, Proceedings of the Psychology of Mathematics Education - North American Chapter)

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

   How does the design of lessons impact the types of questions teachers and students ask during enacted high school mathematics lessons? In this study, we present data that suggests that lessons designed with the mathematical story framework to elicit a specific aesthetic response (“MCLEs”) having a positive influence on the types of teacher and student questions they ask during the lesson. Our findings suggest that when teachers plan and enact lessons with the mathematical story framework, teachers and students are more likely to ask questions that explore mathematical relationships and focus on meaning making. In addition, teachers are less likely to ask short recall or procedural questions in MCLEs. These findings point to the role of lesson design in the quality of questions asked by teachers and students. 

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