Designing Curriculum-Based Mathematics Professional Development for Kindergarten Teachers

Abstract

This study examines the influence of a year-long mathematics professional development program on Kindergarten teachers’ beliefs, content knowledge, instructional practices, and their students’ achievement. The professional development program is grounded in the theoretical construct of learner-centered professional development and focuses on supporting teachers’ integration of standards-based pedagogies aligned with the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. Data analysis included examining 15 Kindergarten teachers’ mathematics content knowledge, their beliefs about mathematics, their enactment of student-centered pedagogies, and student achievement on curriculum-based assessments. Findings indicated that teachers adopted more student-centered pedagogies and embraced more student-centered beliefs about mathematics teaching during their time in the project. Further, Kindergarten teachers also demonstrated gains in their mathematical content knowledge, and those content knowledge gains were linked to gains in student achievement.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Teacher Beliefs Questionnaire

This questionnaire was adapted from Swan (2006). Permission for use was obtained on May 29, 2009.

Appendix 2: Sample of Content Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics (CKT-M)

Ms. Dominguez was working with a new textbook and she noticed that it gave more attention to the number 0 than her old book. She came across a page that asked students to determine if a few statements about 0 were true or false. Intrigued, she showed them to her sister who is also a teacher, and asked her what she thought.

Which statement(s) should the sisters select as being true? (Mark YES, NO, or I’M NOT SURE for each item below.)

	Yes	No	I’m not sure
(a) 0 is an even number	1	2	3
(b) 0 is not really a number. It is a placeholder in writing big numbers	1	2	3
(c) The number 8 can be written as 008	1	2	3

Appendix 3: Teacher Practices Questionnaire

Indicate the frequency with which you utilize each of the following practices in your teaching by circling the number that corresponds with your response.

Practice	Almost never	Sometimes	Half the time	Most of the time	Almost always
1. Students learn through doing exercises	0	1	2	3	4
2. Students work on their own, consulting a neighbor from time to time	0	1	2	3	4
3. Students use only the methods I teach them	0	1	2	3	4
4. Students start with easy questions and work up to harder questions	0	1	2	3	4
5. Students choose which questions they tackle	0	1	2	3	4
6. I encourage students to work more slowly	0	1	2	3	4
7. Students compare different methods for doing questions	0	1	2	3	4
8. I teach each topic from the beginning, assuming they don’t have any prior knowledge of the topic	0	1	2	3	4
9. I teach the whole class at once	0	1	2	3	4
10. I try to cover everything in a topic	0	1	2	3	4
11. I draw links between topics and move back and forth between topics	0	1	2	3	4
12. I am surprised by the ideas that come up in a lesson	0	1	2	3	4
13. I avoid students making mistakes by explaining things carefully first	0	1	2	3	4
14. I tend to follow the textbook or worksheets closely	0	1	2	3	4
15. Students learn through discussing their ideas	0	1	2	3	4
16. Students work collaboratively in pairs or small groups	0	1	2	3	4
17. Students invent their own methods	0	1	2	3	4
18. I tell students which questions to tackle	0	1	2	3	4
19. I only go through one method for doing each question	0	1	2	3	4
20. I find out which parts students already understand and don’t teach those parts	0	1	2	3	4
21. I teach each student differently according to individual needs	0	1	2	3	4
22. I tend to teach each topic separately	0	1	2	3	4
23. I know exactly which topics each lesson will contain	0	1	2	3	4
24. I encourage students to make and discuss mistakes	0	1	2	3	4
25. I jump between topics as the need arises	0	1	2	3	4

This questionnaire was adapted from Swan (2006). Permission for use was obtained on May 29, 2009.