School pupil change associated with a continuing professional development programme for teachers

Abstract

This paper reports on the evaluation of a six‐day programme that provided professional learning to middle school teachers with the aim of equipping them to assist their pupils to achieve improved numeracy outcomes. A teacher profiling instrument designed to measure varied aspects of teachers’ knowledge for teaching mathematics was administered to 29 teachers at the beginning and end of the programme. As well, over 670 of their pupils were surveyed at the beginning of the programme and the end of the school year in relation to the mathematical experiences they had in their classrooms and their performance on basic numeracy tasks. Evidence of changed classroom practice and improved pupil performance was observed.

Keywords:

• mathematics
• teacher professional learning
• pupil change

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Department of Education Tasmania for permission to report on this programme as part of a consultancy undertaken by them. The ‘Being Numerate in the Middle Years’ programme was coordinated by Denise Neal, assisted by Umesh Pratap and Tich Ferencz, satisfying the ethical requirements of the Department.