Bringing Understandings to Light

DMI is a project within the Center for the Development of Teaching, Education Development Center, Inc.

Teachers’ Professional Development
and the Elementary Mathematics Classroom:
Bringing Understandings to Light

Sophia Cohen

Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

T his is a book about the journeys of elementary school teachers across one year’s time, as they participated in a teacher development seminar focused on mathematics, and changed their beliefs, their knowledge, and their practices. The book grows from the project When the Learners’ Thinking Takes Center Stage – an investigation of teacher learning in the Developing Mathematical Ideas Seminar

Bringing Understandings to Light is a very storied exploration of the changes set in motion as teachers worked through the DMI seminar, and an analysis of the potential of professional development seminars as vehicles for change. It is a look at what happens when teachers engage in the kind of professional development so often called for – professional development that is long-term, subject matter intensive, and rooted in the study of student work and classroom practice.

The book presents rich cases or stories that define and illustrate three strands of teacher learning. The stories are built from a variety of types of data, including teacher portfolio writing, interviews, seminar conversation, and classroom observations. While the stories offer vivid portrayals of learning among seminar participants, they cannot, by themselves, indicate how representative those experiences are. Data from the portfolio writing of all seminar participants in each of 2 seminar groups offers this perspective.

The stories and analysis of this book are addressed to a broad audience – the people in every community who have responsibility for making decisions about how teacher development time and money are spent. The level of detail and analysis is sufficient to interest researchers and those concerned with building professional development options for teachers. At the same time, the plain language and the reliance on annotated story makes this book useful to any individual or group concerned with envisioning the teaching and learning towards which they would like their communities to build.

Click here to open a new window and view the Table of Contents and the Preface to Teachers’ Professional Development and the Elementary Mathematics Classroom: Bringing Understandings to Light

Research for this book was supported by a joint grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Spencer Foundation under the Professional Development Research and Documentation Program.

For more information, please contact:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Sophia Cohen
scohen@edc.org or Scohen345@aol.com