MATHEMATICS TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: LESSONS LEARNED FROMTWO COLLABORATIVE ACTION RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS

Collaborative action research partnerships create rich opportunities for the professional development of teachers and classroom reform. This paper reports results from two action research projects. The firs': was a collaboration between the author and a seventh-gr?AP mathematics teacher who wanted to change his mathematics teaching in an effort to more effectively address the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics ' call to infuse problem solving into the mathematics classroom. The second collaborative project stemmed from an eighth-grade teacher's desire to investigate whether or not her efforts in teaching algebra through the use of a "Hands-On " manipulative program were worthwhile. Both projects were teacher-driven and yielded a number of interesting results. In this paper the two studies are described, the process of engaging in collaborative research is discussed, the similarities and difference