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© Education Development Center, 2006-2008

Thinking About Mathematics Instruction
Leadership Content Knowledge
Elementary and Middle School Principals’ Survey

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Overview and comparison of the Pre- and Post-surveys
3. Pre-Survey
4. Post-Survey
5. Assembling Your Own Mathematics Content Knowledge Section
6. Coding Schemes and Sample Responses
7. Validity and Reliability Considerations

Indicators and Illustrative Data for Category 6:
Instructional Decisions Integrate Individual
and Group Mathematical Thinking

Click here to return to the complete Coding Scheme for A Classroom Reflection: BELIEFS. To view illustrators for other categories, click on the appropriate link below.
Category 1	Category 2	Category 3	Category 4	Category 5	Category 6

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6.	Instructional Decisions Integrate Individual and Group Mathematical Thinking
	In this category responses are solidly based on a consideration of ideas. There are two pedagogically distinguishing characteristics of responses coded as 6. 1) Responses include mention of both individual and group thinking, i.e., respondents view the teacher as knowing enough about the thinking of the individuals in the class to be able to select individual students’ ideas for discussion because they know how others will also benefit. 2) Response indicates that respondent views the teacher as trying to find the “forward” place of where the students are.  That is, the respondent views the teacher as knowing that students will only think about what they can think about, so she has to find the point at which student thinking and her agenda can come together.
	Indicators and Illustrative data
	Response indicates that in interpreting the scenario, the respondent’s writing reflects that the following is important to good classroom practice: The teacher uses individual student’s ideas for the benefit of all students’ learning. What I see her doing here is taking an important idea that one student offers, “You can’t divide a smaller by a bigger number” and inviting other students to think about it. I would hope that she would dig deeper into each student’s ideas to push everyone’s thinking forward. The teacher was working to find the “forward” place of where students are in their thinking. …I would want to keep an eye out to make sure that she was keeping track of where students were in their thinking so she could consider what the class was and wasn’t prepared to do.
	Sample Responses for the Category 6 Scoring Scheme
	Because no study participants’ responses fell into this category, we cannot provide a sample response.