Page 112 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

The Role of Teacher Leadership for Promoting Professional Development Practices

through the district in which techniques or ideas are shared (Little, 1993) or university based courses
which teachers attend that focus on academic perspectives (Stein, Smith, & Silver, 1999). Other modes
of professional development such as one-day workshops often make teacher professional development
“intellectually superficial, disconnected from deep issues of curriculum and learning, fragmented, and
noncumulative” (Ball & Cohen, 1999, pp.3-4). There are four critical characteristics of professional
development that improve instruction (Knapp, 2003) they are:

• Aligned with reform initiatives
• Ongoing
• Grounded in a collaborative and inquiry-based approach to learning
• Embedded in the context-specific need of a particular setting

In mathematics shifting the paradigm of traditional teacher professional development is imperative
in a time where problem solving, conceptual understanding and critical thinking are essential skills for
students to enter higher-level mathematics course and without access to higher-level mathematic students
may not have the prerequisites to enter college or professional careers and this is especially true for
disadvantaged and minority students (Achieve, 2008). But such a shift in teacher professional develop-
ment requires not only changing the model but the decision making process. It requires a growth-driven
approach that is ongoing and collaborative from the moment planning begins. Research has found when
professional development is driven by the needs of the participants their content knowledge and practice
grows and this directly impacts the students in their class (Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin 1995;
Little 1998). The purpose of this chapter is to examine one such model of professional development in
mathematics. The present study examines an established and successful teacher professional development
organization and the teacher participants’ motivations and reasons for engaging and becoming part of
the organization. Through this lens it is the hope that other organization can develop best practices for
designing and supporting teacher-centric professional development practices that fosters leadership skills
and promotes collaborative practices within a professional organization. The goals of this chapter are:

1. Discuss present research on Teacher Professional Development in Mathematics and the Role of
Teacher Leadership.
2. Identify teacher leaders’ motivation for participating in professional development.
3. Explain the process of developing a Teacher Leadership team.
4. Describe how a volunteer leadership team designs and executes a mathematics professional event.

BACKGROUND

Teacher Professional Development

Research suggests what hinges on reducing the achievement gap is not just a students’ home address,
but the quality of the classroom teacher (Center for Public Education, 2005). While the achievement
gap in the United States between minority and non-minority students continues to persist and an even
greater international gap appears when students from the United States are compared to their interna-

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