Abstract
Implementing innovations in mathematics education relies on scaling up professional development (PD) for mathematics teachers. Within the German Center of Mathematics Teacher Education (DZLM), the complexities involved in scaling-up processes are addressed with three implementation strategies: a material, a personnel, and a systemic strategy. For each of them, the research base is empirically established by design research and intervention studies. The personnel strategy focuses on preparing teachers for innovative teaching approaches and on preparing PD facilitators for conducting PDs on the content involved. The empirical research required for creating a research base for the personnel strategy investigates what teachers and facilitators need to know about their learners (students on the classroom level, teachers on the PD level) with regard to a specific (PD) content. The main focus of the material strategy is to provide support for teachers and facilitators by adaptable curriculum materials for classrooms and PD sessions. The empirical research on the material strategies focuses on how such material needs to be constructed to ensure both flexibility and fidelity for impactful quality implementation. The systemic strategy involves considering the systemic contexts on each level and cooperating with the respective stakeholders (e.g., school principals or regional PD authorities). The corresponding empirical research focuses on the interplay of processes and systemic conditions. In this paper, we present the implementation strategies on different levels, and typical research approaches and results for strengthening their empirical and theoretical bases.
Highlights
Many rich and promising approaches to mathematics teaching have been developed, qualitatively investigated with respect to the initiated learning processes (Cobb et al 2003), and/or quantitatively studied under laboratory conditions of controlled trials to provide evidence for efficacy
We present three implementation strategies used in the German Center for Mathematics Teacher Education (DZLM)
The implementation project reached out to four other federal states in Germany. For this scaling up step, the material strategy on the teacher PD level (TPD) level was strengthened by redesigning the TPD material into versions that could be published as open educational resources, i.e., into materials which were self-explanatory enough for supporting professional development (PD) facilitators who had not been involved in the design and development
Summary
Many rich and promising approaches to mathematics teaching have been developed, qualitatively investigated with respect to the initiated learning processes (Cobb et al 2003), and/or quantitatively studied under laboratory conditions of controlled trials to provide evidence for efficacy When the aim is to reach many classrooms for an implementation at scale, the necessary research cannot concentrate solely on the classroom level, but must take professional development (PD) of teachers and of PD facilitators into account (Roesken-Winter, Hoyles and Blömeke 2015). We elaborate on contentrelated research questions and findings that are crucial for establishing a theoretical foundation and empirical base for these implementation strategies, and that are specific to mathematics education. We consider this overview as a contribution to content-related implementation research, as it can provide orientation for future implementation research. Both Sections list relevant questions for future studies, as for the moment, we have more questions than answers
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