Learning From Practice About Improving the Quality of Mathematics Teacher Research

Teachers who continually engage in cycles of research may be characterized as having a stance of inquiry: they continually reflect on their past teaching, ask themselves questions to problematize their current practices, and collect and analyze data to inform future teaching practices. We guided 154 mathematics teachers, distributed across six cohorts, in conducting classroom research projects. Our purposes and expectations as teacher educators have become more clearly defined and articulated based on our reflections on six iterations of teacher research. Repeatedly, we have adjusted how we facilitated the design and implementation of the projects to improve the quality of teachers’ research. Over time, we have come to understand teacher research as a way of helping teachers develop a stance of inquiry toward mathematical content, students’ mathematical understandings, and productive mathematical teaching practices.