Professional Conversations and Professional Growth

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A professional development program for 18 teachers was conducted over a two-year period. The participating teachers taught in intermediate schools (students aged 11–13) and secondary schools. The teachers worked collaboratively to improve their mathematics teaching, with encouragement to reflect on their practice but with minimal instruction from the researchers. Results, as defined by change in teaching practices, beliefs, and reflections, and student achievement, indicated that the collaborative program was particularly useful for experienced secondary school teachers but less useful for intermediate school teachers. We concluded that this type of professional development was most useful for teachers who had sufficient knowledge of mathematics; these teachers were able to focus on pedagogy and to draw connections between aspects of the mathematics they taught, without recourse to a specialist's advice.