An investigation of a team of teachers\u27 shared interpretations of the teacher\u27s role in supporting and enhancing group functioning

Collaborative teaching and learning is advocated by many reformers of mathematics education (Schwan Smith, 2001). However, in most schools and classrooms teachers work and students learn solo. In contrast, this study investigates the work done by teams of teachers as they designed teacher level classroom tools to help them support and enhance their students working in groups solving open-ended thought revealing activities (Lesh, Hoover, Hole, Kelly & Post, 2000). The goal of this study was to investigate two different teams of teachers\u27 shared interpretation of the teacher\u27s role in supporting and enhancing students\u27 functioning well in groups. These interpretations are described as they are expressed in the form of two tools designed for optimizing those roles, a group observation tool, and a teacher self-coaching tool. The product of this study is the team\u27s shared interpretations expressed in the form of those tools that they designed to support and enhance their students\u27 functioning well in groups. To get this shared interpretation, the teachers were put in a design research study (Collins, 1992) in which they (the teams of teachers) participated in an iterative series of three situations where they expressed, tested, and revised those interpretations. There are, therefore, two final products of this study: (1) the tested and refined tools that the teams produced which expressed their ways of thinking, and (2) the shared interpretations of the teams and the researcher of the themes and trends of thinking across the development of those tools. The sets of tools that are the result of this study are generalizable in the sense that they are useable in any of a myriad of group problem solving or other collaborative learning environments. Although the focus of this study was on mathematics classrooms and on the implementation of MEAs, the tools designed are adaptable to other content areas, other age groups, and other learning activities and other countries