Teachers' Reflections in an Intelligent, Adaptive Professional Development Program for Proportional Reasoning

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers' Instructional Moves and Decision Making With Technology Across Mathematics Content Areas (Table 15)

Abstract

This study considers the quality of responses on reflection prompts completed by teachers in an intelligent, adaptive professional development (PD) environment. Research shows that reflection can support learning, but research also shows teachers do not always meaningfully engage all aspects of online PD systems. Therefore, we were interested in how teachers engaged with reflection prompts about building students’ conceptual understanding and focusing on ideas related to proportions. Participants included 26 middle school teachers. Responses to all reflection prompts related to pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) were analyzed. Results showed most teachers offered thoughtful reflections aligned with key PD goals of building PCK relevant to student conceptual understanding of proportions and reinforcing/enhancing key mathematical ideas relevant to proportions.

Authors

• Martha Epstein, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
  Presenting Author

• Hamza Malik, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
  Presenting Author

• Kun Wang, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
  Presenting Author

• Chandra H. Orrill, Rethink Learning Labs
  Presenting Author

• Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author