Teacher investigations of students\u27 work: The evolution of teachers\u27 social processes and interpretations of students\u27 thinking

The purpose of this study was to examine the evolution of teachers\u27 collective interpretations of their students\u27 thinking and of the teachers\u27 social processes as a result of investigating their students\u27 work. The latest reform efforts in mathematics education stress the importance of teachers attending to and understanding their students\u27 mathematical thinking, yet focusing on students\u27 thinking can prove difficult for teachers. Ball (1997a) recommends that teacher investigations of classroom artifacts, such as students\u27 work, hold promise for assisting teachers with interpreting their students\u27 thinking, but that it would be helpful to know more about how such approaches influence teachers\u27 interpretations of students\u27 thinking. Therefore, this study investigated two research questions: “When teachers as a group engage in an investigation of their students\u27 work on a thought-revealing, non-routine mathematical task, how do the teachers\u27 collective interpretations of their students\u27 mathematical thinking evolve within the investigation?” and “When teachers as a group engage in a series of investigations of their students\u27 work on thought-revealing, non-routine mathematical tasks, how do the teachers\u27 social processes for making collective interpretations of their students\u27 mathematical thinking evolve across the investigations?” The teachers engaged in five investigations of their students\u27 work. For each investigation, the teachers participated in an Introductory Workshop, where they completed the non-routine mathematics task, then implemented the task in their classrooms, and finally participated in a Follow-Up Workshop, where they discussed and recorded on a Consensus Students\u27 Thinking Sheet their students\u27 thinking strategies for solving the associated task, the mathematical skills and concepts associated with each thinking strategy, and the effectiveness of each thinking strategy in solving the task. Data analysis revealed that the teachers\u27 collective interpretations evolved within three dimensions corresponding with the content of the Consensus Students\u27 Thinking Sheets and that the teachers frequently adopted a students\u27 perspective of the task, leading them to more insights into their students\u27 thinking and to more appreciation for their students\u27 thinking. Data analysis also revealed that the teachers\u27 social processes did not evolve across the five investigations. Implications for facilitators of teacher investigations of students\u27 work and directions for further research are provided