The Evolution of StoryCircles: An Online Professional Learning Approach to Attend to Practice in Context

• In Event: Math Teacher Professional Development: Understanding Processes and Impact

Abstract

In this report, we explore how design decisions have impacted ways teachers represent practice. Particularly, we note the ways that three iterations of an approach called StoryCircles has permitted the negotiation of meanings for actions in classrooms to help practitioners consider critical situational particulars. As a result of the first iteration of StoryCircles in which teachers created their own lesson storylines, there were two identified needs that were addressed in the following iterations: a need to introduce non-idealized work in the form of contingency cards and a need to allow the teachers to place particular moments in the larger context of the lesson. This study contributes to the understanding of environments that support teachers to learn from one another’s practice.

Authors

• Patricio G. Herbst, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Amanda Marie Milewski, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Irma E. Stevens, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor