Evolution of Inquiry Questions in a Cyclic Professional Development Program

Authors

  • John Gruver Michigan Technological University
  • Janet Bowers San Diego State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33524/cjar.v20i3.461

Keywords:

Professional development, Teacher inquiry, Action research

Abstract

Teachers in professional development (PD) programs need time to adopt, enact and reflect on what they are learning in the PD within their own situations. To encourage reflective implementation and adaptation of ideas and practices promoted in the PD studied in this article, participants were asked to engage in several small action research projects over time. To gain insights into how the cyclic process of implementation and reflection effected changes in practice and knowledge, we examined the nature of the research questions asked by a cohort of teacher-researchers (n=31) as they engaged in several cycles of action research over a three-year period. We found the nature of the questions they asked shifted over time from investigating the efficacy of particular interventions in terms of students' performance to exploring how to support students as they reason about mathematics. These results provoke questions about why these particular changes occurred and why others did not.

Author Biographies

John Gruver, Michigan Technological University

John Gruver researches the nature of productive discourse practices that help students learn specific secondary mathematics topics. This includes how teachers orchestrate discussion, students’ engagement and interpretation of classroom discussions, and the nature students’ subsequent reasoning.

Janet Bowers, San Diego State University

Janet Bowers’s interests involve researching the ways in which students' development of mathematical understandings can be supported through advanced technologies. During one recent project, she worked with a team of researchers to develop three computer-based microworlds to support students' development of place value conceptions.

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Published

2020-09-04

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 3 (2019)

Section

Articles

License

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