Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-148).

Thesis (MEd(Education))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Recent research on teachers’ achievement goals suggests that the teacher with a mastery goal is more likely to retain a high degree of interest in teaching, more willing to seek help with their teaching, and less likely to report professional ‘burnout.’ Section one of this study extends this line of research by testing the hypothesis that teachers with mastery goals toward teaching are more likely to display the traits of the adaptive expert. Achievement goals and adaptive expertise are measured for a sample of secondary school mathematics teachers who have attained National Board Teacher Certification. A multiple regression model is used with score on the adaptive expertise measure as the dependent variable and four independent variables. The second part of this study proposes the development and evaluation of a challenge-based model of professional development. The Legacy Cycle has been used extensively to teach transfer and adaptive expertise to college students. It has not been used, however, in the professional development of teachers. A professional development program using the Legacy Cycle for teaching high school Algebra teachers how to implement a new conceptually-based Algebra 1 curriculum is proposed. Its accompanying evaluation plan will enable further exploration of the role teacher goal orientation and school climate play in a teacher’s willingness and ability to innovate; and if having an adaptive expert in the classroom can improve student learning. / text

Hiring, retaining, and developing quality instructors is arguably one of the most important ways of ensuring a high quality education (Hagedorn, Perrakis & Maxwell, 2006; Sprouse, Ebbers & King, 2008). However, identifying what makes a teacher an expert (i.e., someone who excels at teaching) is difficult. Indeed, Berliner (2005) argued that quality teaching is almost indescribable. Good teaching, he suggested, starts with a combination of skills -- such as modeling, motivating, and mentoring -- and the ability to produce acceptable student performance. Beyond these basic characteristics, he continued, "... a highly qualified individual, always requires keen insight and good judgment" (p. 207). But Berliner saw no way for society to measure this latter aspect of quality teaching. Recent scholarship on expertise, however, is providing new means for understanding what expertise is and how it is acquired (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Ericsson, 2006; Hatano & Inagaki, 1984). This study applies the theory of adaptive expertise to an investigation of the factors that influence the acquisition of teaching expertise among mathematics instructors. The relations among the institutional environment and instructors goal and problem-solving orientations was measured for mathematics instructors who taught Algebra I, Algebra II/Intermediate Algebra or College Algebra during the past two academic years. Algebra instructors in secondary schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions were asked to participate. This study extends the work of Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) by applying their theory of an expert career to teaching, an area in which much of the public discussion focuses on the need for more excellent performance. Structural Equation Modeling and Cluster Analyses were used to examine the effects of the reward structure of the institution, the extent to which a teacher identifies himself or herself as mastery goal oriented toward teaching and engaged in a conscious process to improve their teaching practice, and a teacher's acquisition of content and pedagogical knowledge, on a teacher's expert performance. Although the institutional reward structure and mastery goal orientation were found to have a positive effect on a teacher's engagement in continuous improvement behaviors, these behaviors were not found to have a significant impact on expert performance. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

Not available / text

Mathematical Literacy (ML) was introduced as a new subject in 2006, as an alternative to Mathematics for learners in Grade 10 to 12 in South African schools. The challenge of the shortage of Mathematics teachers (and hence Mathematical Literacy teachers), was exarcebated. Hence the KwaZulu Natal Department of Education (KZNDoE) jointly with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) initiated a programme designed to re-skill teachers to teach this new subject. This study explores the professional development of such teachers as a result of their participation in the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACEML) course at UKZN. Their professional development is explored in terms of their content knowledge, a content specific pedagogy and their professional identity and beliefs. The study was informed by a naturalistic, interpretivist orientation. Two versions of semi-structured questionnaires were completed by a total of twenty-three teachers. The first version, called Questionnaire A, was completed by fifteen teachers while the second version, Questionnaire B, by eight teachers respectively. Later, semi-structured interviews with four of the teachers were conducted. Their previous academic records were also used as data sources. The key findings of the study revealed that all teachers interviewed perceived improvement in their content knowledge as a result of their participation in the programme. Examples of improvements in their content-specific pedagogies were their increased repertoire of teaching strategies, their increased confidence, their focus on learners‟ prior understanding and their ability to link their teaching to real life applications. Findings also indicate that many teachers developed strong identities as Mathematical literacy teachers. A shift in identity was also evident with some teachers switching over from previous specialisations to teaching only Mathematical Literacy. Many teachers also felt that the generic modules helped them gain a broader understanding of their role. Claims that Mathematics teachers who have not studied the ACEML cannot teach ML as successfully as those who have, were made by most teachers. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

In recent years much has been said and written concerning the widening gap between the newer developments in mathematics and that which is traditionally taught in secondary schools. Not unnaturally, leading scholars in mathematics have looked at the school programmes and found them wanting in many respects. [...]

<p>The purpose of the study was to investigate prospective &lsquo / A&rsquo / level mathematics teachers&rsquo / knowledge of the concept of a function. The study was a case study of six prospective Zimbabwean teachers who were majoring in mathematics with the intention of completing a programme leading to certification as secondary mathematics teachers. At the time of the study the six prospective teachers were in their final year of study. Prospective teachers&rsquo / knowledge of the concept of a function was assessed through task-based interviews and reflective interviews. These interviews, which were done over a period of three months, were structured to capture the prospective teachers&rsquo / subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for teaching the concept of a function. The interviews were also meant to capture the prospective teachers&rsquo / underlining pedagogical reasons for their choices of the examples, representations and teaching approaches when planning to teach the concept.</p> <p>As part of the study a theoretical framework for understanding prospective teachers&rsquo / knowledge of the concept of a function was developed. The framework, which was developed, was used as an analytical tool in analyzing prospective teachers knowledge of the concept of a function. The results of the study indicated that the prospective teachers had a process conception of a function although some of them had given a set-theoretic definition of a function in which a function is perceived as a mathematical object. They also confined the notion of a function to sets of real numbers. Functions defined on other mathematical objects (for example, the differential operator and the determinant function) were not considered as functions by five of the six prospective teachers.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2086. Includes bibliographical references.