Enhancing Orchestration of Mathematical Learning Experiences through Productive Teacher Noticing

Orchestrating mathematically meaningful learning experiences is pedagogically demanding. It requires teachers to shift their practices to a more interactive teaching style, which is aimed at developing students' mathematical competencies by building on students' thinking. Enacting this form of ambitious teaching puts enormous mathematical demands on teachers as they design mathematical tasks, orchestrate productive mathematical discussions, assess students' reasoning, and reflect about students' thinking to advance learning. In our work with exemplary secondary school teachers on another project, Portraits of Teacher Noticing during Orchestration of Learning Experiences in the Mathematics Classrooms (DER 03/16 CBH}, our initial findings suggest that teachers need to notice productively about the mathematics embedded in the tasks and students' responses during lessons. However, this is challenging work, even for secondary school teachers. As many primary school teachers do not have a degree in mathematics or mathematics-related disciplines, it will be more challenging for them to see the mathematical potential of tasks they use in the classrooms, and how these tasks may be used to develop students' mathematical competencies. In this project, we propose to develop a new professional learning framework for teachers to enhance their orchestration of learning experiences through productive teacher noticing.

With the aim of supporting teachers to do this ambitious teaching, there has been an increased emphasis on providing meaningful opportunities for teachers to reflect and learn from their teaching practices. This has led to an increased adoption of collaborative teacher inquiry-based approaches such as video clubs, Lesson Studies, collaborative lesson research, or replacement unit strategy. Although there is extensive support for teachers to engage in learning communities for the purpose of working collaboratively to learn and improve their teaching, it is unclear what teachers learn from these activities, and how these activities have helped to improve quality of mathematics instruction. Furthermore, time constraints remain a primary concern amongst teachers and hinder teachers from participating fully in professional learning activities. Lastly, there is also a need to strengthen teacher professional learning and knowledge building by focusing on the quality of instructional tasks and classroom talk.

Therefore, this project aims to develop a new professional learning framework that translates into a sustainable whole-school teacher professional learning programme to enhance teachers' orchestration of learning experiences. There are two critical components in this new professional development framework. First, we focus on developing an on line toolkit, Mathematics Learning Experience Toolkit for Primary Schools (MATHLET-P), for teachers. Amongst others, this toolkit may consist of resources and tools for teachers to enact teaching practices that promote high quality learning experiences. Second, we intend to design a school-wide professional development programme, which incorporates the use of the MATHLET-P toolkit, to enhance teachers' productive noticing. This new professional development programme may involve elements adapted or adopted from professional learning communities where teachers have opportunities to engage actively in collaborative lesson designs, investigate teaching practices, and focus on developing students' mathematical processes.