Boston & Smith (2009)

Transforming Secondary Mathematics Teaching: Increasing the Cognitive Demands of Instructional Tasks Used in Teachers' Classrooms

• Authors: Melissa Boston and Margaret Smith
• Journal: Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
• Year: 2009
• Source: http://www.nctm.org/publications/article.aspx?id=23256 and http://www.jstor.org/stable/40539329

Abstract

Mathematics teachers' selection and implementation of instructional tasks were analyzed before, during, and after their participation in a professional development initiative that focused on selecting and enacting cognitively challenging mathematical tasks. Data collected from 18 secondary mathematics teacher participants included tasks and student work from teachers' classrooms, lesson observations, and interviews. Ten secondary mathematics teachers who did not participate in the professional development initiative served as the contrast group and participated in 1 lesson observation each. Analysis of the data indicated that, following their participation in the professional development initiative, project teachers more frequently selected high-level tasks as the main instructional tasks in their classrooms and had improved the maintenance of high-level cognitive demands. Significant differences existed between project teachers and the contrast group in task selection and implementation. These differences were not influenced by the use of Standards-based or conventional curricula in project teachers' classrooms.

Outline of Headings

• Background
  • The Importance of Cognitively Challenging Mathematical Tasks
  • The Importance of Task Implementation
  • Transformative Professional Development for Teachers of Mathematics
• Methods
  • Context and Content of the Professional Development Intervention
  • Subjects
  • Data Sources
    • Instructional Tasks
    • Student Work
    • Lesson Observations
    • Data From the Contrast Group
  • Instrumentation and Coding
  • Analysis
• Results
  • Teachers' Selection of Instructional Tasks
    • Differences in Mean Scores Between Task Collections
    • Differences in Mean Scores Between Curriculum Type
    • Differences in the Number of High-Level Tasks Between Data Collections
  • Teachers' Implementation of Tasks
    • Collections of Students' Work
      • Analyzing student-work Implementation scores
      • Analyzing the influence of curriculum on teachers' student-work Implementation scores
    • Lesson Observations
• Discussion
  • ESP Teachers Increased Their Selection of High-Level Instructional Tasks
  • ESP Teachers Improved Their Implementation of High-Level Tasks
• Conclusions

Also

APA

Boston, M. D., & Smith, M. S. (2009). Transforming secondary mathematics teaching: Increasing the cognitive demands of instructional tasks used in teachers’ classrooms. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 40(2), 119–156.

BibTeX

@article{Boston2009,
author = {Boston, Melissa D. and Smith, Margaret S.},
journal = {Journal for Research in Mathematics Education},
keywords = {Teaching practice,higher order thinking,professional development,secondary mathematics,teacher knowledge},
number = {2},
pages = {119--156},
title = {{Transforming secondary mathematics teaching: Increasing the cognitive demands of instructional tasks used in teachers' classrooms}},
url = {http://www.nctm.org/publications/article.aspx?id=23256 http://www.jstor.org/stable/40539329},
volume = {40},
year = {2009}
}