Most professional development programs
consist of teachers drawn from a number of dif
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ferent schools, so that when the teachers return
to their classes for the school year, there may
be only one or two colleagues at their school with
whom they can share their work and discuss
their goals. This is in contrast to the EMTTP pro
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ject which involved virtually an entire school
faculty and thus provided a natural setting for
the kind of faculty interaction necessary to im
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prove a school mathematics program. To con
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tinue the conversation about mathematics begun
in the summer, during the school year I met bi
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weekly with the teachers at each grade level and
worked with individual teachers in their class
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rooms. A graduate student in mathematics ed
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ucation, Lorel Preston, assisted me in this work.
The regular forty-five minute, grade-level meet
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ings gave teachers an opportunity to share their
math lessons, to refine their thinking on both
mathematics content and pedagogical issues,
and to consider long-range goals for their math
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ematics curriculum. By working in the class
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rooms with the teachers, giving lessons or lead
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ing groups of students, and then debriefing
afterwards, we were able to learn about an in
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dividual teacher’s goals and concerns. By shar
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ing the elementary teaching experience in this
way, we were better able to offer support that
recognized each teacher’s potential for growth
and that could relate the actual classroom work
to the grade-level discussions