Using Cycles of Improvement to Increase the Effectiveness of Mathematics Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Problem-Disciplined Practice-Based Inquiry for Improving Mathematics Teaching and Learning: Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycles as Tools for Improvement

Abstract

Purpose. In this paper, I propose a system, based on continuing cycles of improvement, to explain the gradual but steady increase in the effectiveness of a K-6 teacher preparation program to help pre-service teachers (PSTs) acquire mathematics-knowledge-for-teaching. The theoretical basis for this system, and its application to teacher preparation, show the utility of Improvement Science in ensuring lasting improvements in educational outcomes over time.

Theoretical Framework. A serious obstacle to improving teacher preparation in the U.S. is the absence of a shared knowledge base for how to prepare teachers (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Hiebert & Morris, 2009). But, the most serious obstacle is that the field has no mechanism in place for acquiring one. There is no infrastructure that encourages and facilitates capturing, vetting, and refining the knowledge generated by individual teacher educators and programs. Most teacher educators reinvent their programs rather than building on what others have learned. The profession suffers from “collective amnesia” (Shulman, 1987).

Improvement Science (Kenney, 2008; Langley et al., 1996; Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015) offers an antidote to the historically fragmented and chaotic process of educational improvement in the U.S. Rather than starting over at each site with each generation of educators, the principles of Improvement Science outline a process that can steadily build a knowledge base of “principled practical knowledge” (Bereiter, 2014) to support lasting improvements in education (as well as in all professions of practice).

Methods and Data Sources. The system of improvement for teacher preparation I will describe focuses on the mathematics portion of a K-6 program located in a graduate university in the eastern U.S. The mathematics content preparation consists of three courses. For the past 15 years, instructors for the multiple sections of each course have met weekly each semester to improve specific lessons. Data on the effectiveness of changes have been collected using a range of assessments. This paper will focus on the performance of successive cohorts of PSTs on the same items of a self-designed test administered one year after PSTs completed the third mathematics course.

Results and Conclusions. Performance on specific items that assess notoriously challenging concepts for PSTs show gradual but steady improvement from cohort to cohort. For example, percentage of correct responses on an item asking participants to write a story problem for 1 ¾ ÷ ½ rose significantly from 32 to 70 over a 5-year period. We interpret the gains over time as consequences of improvements in the instructional activities and methods used in the lessons for each course.

Significance. The cycles of improvement implemented each semester, over 15 years, have produced documented improvements in PSTs learning. More than that, the knowledge acquired about how to improve instruction have been stored and updated in the annotated lesson plans for each course. There is no reason that similar systems could not be designed to improve outcomes in other education settings.

Author

• James Hiebert, University of Delaware