Teacher Time Out: Examining a Routine That Supports Collective Learning and Innovation in Teaching Mathematics

• In Event: 54.044 - Exploring Varied Approaches to Supporting Responsive Teaching in Science and Mathematics

Abstract

Professional learning is crucial to support high quality practice. In our work, Math Labs were designed to support teachers’ collective learning and innovation of equitable practice that responds to and builds on students’ ideas. Math Labs are full day, job-embedded experiences involving multiple stakeholders (e.g. teachers, school leaders, university mathematics educators). Math Labs supported teachers to develop practices promoted by the mathematics education community and positioned teachers as innovators contributing to this growing knowledge base. To understand how Math Labs accomplished these outcomes, it is necessary to examine mechanisms, particularly organizational routines, that make this professional learning possible.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze an organizational routine, called Teacher Time Out (TTO), that emerged during Math Labs. During Math Labs, teachers engage in a “cycle of co-planning, co-teaching, and reflection” of lessons enacted with actual students (Authors, 2013c, p. 8). TTOs allow educators to pause regularly within these lessons to think aloud, discuss, and enact practice. We asked: How do TTOs support the collective improvement of teaching mathematics and support the development of professional community?

We purposefully selected one classroom lesson during a Math Lab to explicate the features of TTOs and how they supported collective reasoning across stakeholders. This case is situated within a larger analysis of 72 Math Labs over three years at Hilltop Elementary School. To analyze video recordings of TTO episodes in the lesson, we developed a coding scheme based on Little’s (2002) framework. This framework highlights how the routine supported: (a) the team’s orientations toward practice; (b) the norms of interaction; and (c) the multiple role groups in their work to support learning. To situate the TTOs in the larger professional development context, we examined: (a) field notes taken throughout that Math Lab day, (b) interviews with teachers and school leaders, and (c) individual written reflections about TTOs.

TTOs became an embedded structure in the ongoing life of the school and supported organizational learning. The routine oriented educators toward the complexity of practice and fostered a collective stance toward its improvement. Stakeholders brought different forms of expertise, but developed a shared vision of high quality instruction through the experience of co-enacting lessons. TTOs supported educators’ collaboration inside enactments of teaching, not just before or after enactments. Thus, the routine attended to the interplay between knowledge (something that one “possesses”) and knowing (deploying knowledge in practice) as teachers immediately tried out new ideas (Authors, 2008b; Cook & Brown, 1999).

TTO encourages educators to learn collectively about practice in authentic teaching settings. Our findings describe structures to support collaboration between different stakeholders. In the three years that Hilltop implemented Math Labs, significant and steady gains were made in instructional quality, professional community, and student achievement. Other local schools have also started using TTOs to support teacher learning, and continued research on TTO and other organizational routines in these contexts can refine collaborative supports necessary for systematic and sustained improvement of practice.

Authors

• Elizabeth Hartmann, University of Fukui

• Allison Beth Hintz, University of Washington - Bothell

• Elham Kazemi, University of Washington