Connection, Motivation, & Alignment: Exploring the Effects of Content-Based Mathematical Professional Development

Abstract

Teachers' construction of and motivation for using new mathematics knowledge learned in professional development differs from students' learning of mathematical concepts. However, teachers also vary in their use of new mathematics content in their own classrooms. This qualitative study followed teachers from a professional development course in algebra into their classrooms in order to investigate how teachers connect mathematics content from PD with the content they teach. The results of this study established three modes of connection (direct connection, indirect connection, and disconnection) and contextualized these connections by exploring teachers' motivations for participating in professional development and analyzing their alignment with the perspective on and development of the content taken by the PD course's instructors.