DEVELOPING SECONDARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS
KNOWLEDGE OF AND CAPACITY TO IMPLEMENT INSTRUCTIONAL TASKS
WITH HIGH LEVEL COGNITIVE DEMANDS
Melissa D. Boston, EdD
University of Pittsburgh, 2006
This study analyzed mathematics teachers selection and implementation of instructional tasks in their own classrooms before, during, and after their participation in a professional development workshop focused on the cognitive demands of mathematical tasks. Eighteen secondary mathematics teachers participated in a six-session professional development workshop under the auspices of the Enhancing Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation (ESP) Project throughout the 2004-2005 school year. Data collected from the ESP workshop included written artifacts created during the professional development sessions and videotapes of each session. Data collected from teachers included a pre/post measure of teachers knowledge of the cognitive demands of mathematical tasks, collections of tasks and student work from teachers classrooms, lesson observations, and interviews. Ten secondary mathematics teachers who did not participate in the ESP workshop served as the contrast group, completed the pre/post measure, and participated in one lesson observation.
Analysis of the data indicated that the ESP workshop provided learning experiences for teachers that transformed their previous knowledge and instructional practices. ESP teachers enhanced their knowledge of the cognitive demands of mathematical tasks; specifically, they improved their ability to identify and describe the characteristics of tasks that influence students opportunities for learning. Following their participation in ESP, teachers were more frequently selecting high-level tasks as the main instructional tasks in their own classrooms. ESP teachers also improved their ability to maintain high-level cognitive demands during implementation. Student work implementation significantly improved from Fall to Spring, and comparisons of the implementation of high-level student work tasks indicated that high-level demands were less likely to decline in Spring than in Fall. Lesson observations did not yield statistically significant results from Fall to Spring; however, significant differences existed between ESP teachers and the contrast group in task selection and implementation during lesson observations. ESP teachers also outperformed the contrast group on the post-measure of the knowledge of cognitive demands of mathematical tasks. None of the significant differences were influenced by the use of a reform vs. traditional curricula in teachers classrooms. Teachers who exhibited greater improvements more frequent contributions and more comments on issues of implementation than teachers who exhibited less improvement.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04212006-000336 |
| Date | 25 April 2006 |
| Creators | Boston, Melissa D. |
| Contributors | Dr. Margaret Smith, Dr. Ellen Ansell, Dr. Gaea Leinhardt, Dr. Mary Kay Stein |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04212006-000336/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0027 seconds