[Maths-Education] (no subject)

[Candia Morgan]

Research Seminar, Mathematics Education Special Interest Group
Thursday 18 September
5:30
Room 901, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

Designing Schools and Districts as Learning Organizations for 
Instructional Improvement in Mathematics

Paul Cobb
Vanderbilt University

This presentation focuses on research that can inform the improvement 
of mathematics teaching and learning at scale. In educational contexts, 
improvement at scale refers to the process of taking an instructional 
innovation that has proved effective in supporting students’ learning 
in a small number of classrooms and reproducing that success in a large 
number of classrooms. I first argue that such research should view 
mathematics teachers’ instructional practices as situated in the 
institutional settings of the schools and broader administrative 
jurisdictions in which they work. I then discuss a series of hypotheses 
about structures that might support teachers' ongoing improvement of 
their classroom practices. These support structures range from teacher 
networks whose activities focus on instructional issues to relations of 
assistance and accountability between teachers, school leaders, and 
leaders of broader administrative jurisdictions. I illustrate the 
conjectured support structures by describing the improvement plan for 
mathematics instruction currently being implemented by a large urban 
school district in the US.  I go on to present our findings about how 
this improvement plan is playing in schools and classrooms, and report 
the feedback we gave the district about its plan might be adjusted to 
make it more effective.  I conclude the presentation by discussing the 
value of research collaborations that bridge between classroom 
instructional processes and the broader policy environment.

contact Candia Morgan at c.morgan at ioe.ac.uk