Creating Whole-Person Professional Development for Elementary Mathematics Teachers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 10:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Teacher Collaboration and Professional Growth: Advancing Equity and Agency in Mathematics and STEAM Education (Table 9)

Abstract

This paper examines how an elementary mathematics professional development effort created space for teachers to engage as whole people, and argues that this holistic space provided teachers with opportunities to experience renewal, pleasure, and excitement about their mathematics teaching. We argue that foregrounding play in work with children and in professional development with teachers was central to supporting teachers in (at least partially) freeing themselves and their students from oppressive structures of schooling.

Authors

• Amy Noelle Parks, Michigan State University

• Melissa Sommerfeld Gresalfi, Vanderbilt University

• Anita A. Wager, Vanderbilt University