ABSTRACT

The ability to notice students’ mathematical thinking is key to better understanding student learning and effective teaching. Our professional development program utilized a Child Study Assignment in an attempt to strengthen K–3 teacher noticing. We applied principles of improvement science to improve this assignment to better support the development of teachers’ noticing skills. In this article, we first describe the Child Study Assignment and adjustments made to the assignment across time. Next, we provide suggestions for how this assignment might be adapted in other contexts. Lastly, we present teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of the Child Study Assignment. Teachers in our professional development program reported that the assignment offered valuable learning experiences, and they often shared their experience with other educators. As teacher educators, we also are able to reflect on our practices with the assignment and use our reflections to improve our efforts to promote teacher noticing. The Child Study Assignment and this process of continual reflection and adaptation may offer teacher educators a useful tool to improve mathematics teachers’ noticing skills, as well as an example of how to revise a professional development activity to better support teachers in meeting program goals.

摘要

注意到学生数学思维的能力是更好地理解学生学习和有效教学的关键。我们的专业发展计划利用儿童学习作业来加强 K-3 教师的注意。我们应用改进科学的原则来改进这项作业，以更好地支持教师注意技能的发展。在本文中，我们首先描述了儿童学习作业以及随时间对作业所做的调整。接下来，我们就如何在其他情况下调整此分配提供建议。最后，我们介绍了教师对儿童学习作业有用性的看法。我们专业发展计划的教师报告说，这项作业提供了宝贵的学习经验，他们经常与其他教育工作者分享他们的经验。作为教师教育工作者，我们也能够在作业中反思我们的实践，并利用我们的反思来改进我们促进教师注意的努力。儿童学习作业和这个不断反思和适应的过程可以为教师教育者提供一个有用的工具来提高数学教师的注意技能，以及如何修改专业发展活动以更好地支持教师实现项目目标的一个例子。