Moving beyond the barriers: a re-defined, multi-leveled partnership approach to mathematics teacher education.

The combination of federal exigency for Highly Qualified Teachers in every classroom (No Child Left Behind, 2001) and focus on teacher accountability has created a plethora of routes to teacher certification and continuing education. This urgent situation has placed a burden on schools of education to approach teacher education in creative and expedited ways, while concurrently placing focus on content knowledge and research-based pedagogy. In response we (university faculty in teacher education and mathematics) designed a mathematics community continuum (MCC) that expands and redefines the traditional relationship among schools of education, colleges of arts and sciences, and school districts. Within this community continuum we used mathematics as a content vehicle and an urban mini-district as a ripe context to study teacher learning and development. The MCC (Figure 1) builds a reciprocal community using multi-level mentoring, site-based professional development, shared expertise, and research to facilitate teacher growth and learning of prospective and practicing teachers, school administrators, and university faculty.

Our goal with this project was to understand ways to envision and implement alternative structures for mathematics teacher education, as well as teacher education more generally, which addressed federal demands and provided a model for exemplary design of university-school partnerships. What has made this work both interesting and possible is that we, at the time of this study, were housed in different units within the same university (a school of education and a department of mathematics in arts and sciences), yet were connected by our common perspectives related to teacher education and the important role a teacher can play in transforming K-12 schooling (Borko & Putnam, 1995).

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For this project there were many lines of parallel inquiry; in this paper we discuss findings relative to the following question: In what ways did the structure of the continuum help to advance the learning of mathematics and its teaching? Throughout the rest of this paper we outline the details of this community continuum, particularly as it pertains to mathematics teacher education and professional development. As part of this description we provide a synthesis of relevant literature that framed the development of this continuum, as well as why this context provides a rich window for studying professional development, particularly in the area of mathematics. Finally, we outline how the findings of this research study inform understanding of alternative structures of mathematics teacher education at all stages of development.

Review of Literature

Relevant research in the areas of mathematics teaching and learning, teacher development and change, and effectiveness within urban schools provided a framework for this professional development project and research study. Effective professional development can be an invaluable foundation for high-quality, reform-oriented teaching, which can then lead to student learning (e.g., Killion, 2002; U. S. Dept. of Education, 2000). Furthermore, teachers serve as the primary catalyst for change in students' learning (Borko & Putnam, 1995). The community continuum goals were thus focused on teacher development at all levels and included: increasing teacher knowledge, supporting and mentoring teachers in efforts to align practice in ways that improved students' mathematical understandings and ultimately students' achievement, and building a school community that nurtured teacher leadership and collaborations with prospective and practicing teachers, teacher leaders, administrations, university faculty and the mathematics educational community.

The U. S. Department of Education (2000) identifies a teacher's content area knowledge as the most important qualification. National (e.g., NCTM, 2000) and state-level recommendations call for an approach to mathematics teaching that allows students to communicate, problem-solve, and engage in conceptual mathematics. This shift toward inquiry-based instruction assumes teachers view mathematics as a tool for thought, rather than a set of rules and procedures to be memorized. However, teachers are unlikely to make adjustments in their thinking without intervention and deliberate support (Richardson & Anders, 1994). Given this understanding, professional development efforts must intentionally provide experiences that will assist teachers in learning new ways of thinking about mathematics and its teaching.