Center for Development of Teaching

Center for Development of Teaching

 

Center for the Development of Teaching (CDT) is a research and development center at the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). The goal of the Center for the Development of Teaching is to learn, with teachers and administrators, how mathematics instruction can be transformed so that it supports students' construction of knowledge. The Center carries out research and action projects that address the issues involved in change at three interacting levels:

1. teachers' beliefs and knowledge about their subjects and about learning and teaching
2. teachers' classroom practice
3. the complex social system that extends from the school and school district to the society at large.

In its first three years core support for the Center for the Development of Teaching was provided by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, whose mission is to foster fundamental improvement in the quality of educational and career development opportunities for all school-age youth, and to increase access to these improved services for young people in low-income communities.

CDT's first projects focused on providing educational experiences for teachers and conducting research on the process of teacher change in mathematics and science. In particular, our interests have included: the effect of changes in teachers' mathematical knowledge on their teaching; the effects of change in the professional culture and administrative supports that surround teaching; the role of material resources (articles, videotapes, innovative curricula, narratives written by teachers, and so on) in teacher change; the nature of conceptual resources for high school physics teachers; the role of affect in teacher change; and parent learning about mathematics education reform.

Out of these activities have emerged several new strands of work.

The Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) Curriculum. Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) is a curriculum designed to help teachers think through the major ideas of K-6 mathematics and examine how children develop those ideas. At the heart of the materials are sets of classroom episodes (cases), illustrating student thinking as described by their teachers. In addition to case discussions, the curriculum offers teachers opportunities: to explore mathematics in lessons led by facilitators; to share and discuss the work of their own students; to plan, conduct, and analyze mathematics interviews of their own students; to view and discuss videotapes of mathematics classrooms and mathematics interviews; to write their own classroom episodes; to analyze lessons taken from innovative elementary mathematics curricula; and to read overviews of related research. Associated with DMI are a variety of research studies and projects, described on linked pages.

Teacher Leadership Development. New models of professional development in mathematics are now available to reach increasing large numbers of teachers seeking to improve their mathematics teaching practice. Such professional development programs provide communities of inquiry for teachers that allow for deepening one's mathematical content knowledge, examining how students come to understand important mathematical ideas, and forging a new mathematics teaching practice that builds on these new understandings. Teacher leaders play an important role in making such opportunities widely available. A number of CDT teacher development projects include teacher leadership components which provide teachers with the opportunity to learn how to provide professional development for their colleagues. In addition, some of the products of these projects are being used in other settings to build teacher leadership.

Professional Development for Administrators. For mathematics reform to take hold nationally and have lasting effects within schools and districts, it will not be enough to change what happens inside classrooms. District and administrative support, on a broad scale, also is needed. Our program of work with administrators investigates how administrators' understanding of the nature of mathematics, learning, and teaching affects their interpretation of a variety of administrative practices related to instruction and how, as administrators become more familiar with the ideas that underlie standards based mathematics education, they develop new views of what constitutes supportive administrative practice. Like many teachers, most administrators were educated at a time when the ideas about the nature of mathematics, learning, and teaching were very different than those embedded in standard's based mathematics education reform movement. Administrators need the opportunity to explore new conceptions about mathematical understanding, learning, and teaching, and reconceptualize the foundations on which their work is based. Our work with administrators aims to understand the conditions under which they can do such reconceptualization.

This work includes the development of the Lenses on Learning professional development materials, associated facilitators institutes, and a variety of research studies.

Parents' Involvement in Education. It is increasingly important for parents to become informed and thoughtful participants in the mathematics education of their children. Parents need to understand the methods and purposes of mathematics education so that they can participate in examination, critique, discussion and decision making about current approaches. Parents also need to serve as effective supports, models and substantive resources for their children. CDT is interested in helping parents assume these roles, enabling them to develop a broader perspective on mathematical knowledge and on the kind of teaching and learning that fosters this knowledge. We are working with parents to explore the nature of their own mathematical knowledge, the way they listen to their children's mathematical thinking, and the kind of relationships they might have with teachers and other school personnel.

CDT has pursued its work through a number of funded projects. These include:

Administrators Working for Change: Materials to Support Administrators' Learning About Mathematics Education Reform - K-8
Principal Investigator: Barbara Scott Nelson
Supported by the NSF and PEW Charitable Trusts

Lenses on Learning Facilitator Institutes
Principal Investigator: Barbara Scott Nelson
Supported by the National Science Foundation

Developing Mathematical Ideas Leadership Institute
Principal Investigator: Deborah Schifter
Supported by The Exxon Education Foundation

Leadership Content Knowledge: What it is and how it affects administrators' practice of classroom observation & teacher supervision
Principal Investigator: Barbara Scott Nelson
Supported by The Spencer Foundation

Leadership Content Knowledge and Mathematics Instructional Quality in the MSPs: A Study of Elementary and Middle School Principals
(Thinking About Mathematics Instruction)
Principal Investigator: Barbara Scott Nelson
Supported by the National Science Foundation

Lenses on Learning: Understanding Mathematics Instruction at the Secondary Level
Principal Investigator: Barbara Scott Nelson
Project Director: Catherine Miles Grant
Supported by the National Science Foundation

CDT also publishes a refereed paper series, which is intended as a vehicle for discussion of research on teaching and teacher development as they related to education reform. Publications in this series contribute to the community's understanding of the practice and profession of teaching, as well as to the process of change.