Investigation on the Effects of Mathematics Professional Learning Community for Remedial Instruction

Abstract

Abstract:The purpose of study was to investigate the effects of mathematics professional learning community (PLC) for remedial instruction. The participant of the PLC was teachers from one primary school. They were invited to join the project of mathematics remedial instruction. This project was organized by the researcher who integrated components of effective mathematics instruction so as to help teachers carry out remedial mathematics instruction. The PLC teachers in the research are primary school teachers of fourth grade in Taiwan. In order to promote their knowledge of mathematics remedial instruction, they were engaged in the workshops of lesson studies and organized as school-based professional learning community. Lesson studies consisted of components to improve effectively remedial mathematics instruction. These components included life mathematics, scaffolding for mathematics reading comprehension, strategies for problem solving, guidance of representation and schema-based instruction. All the resources and instruction materials were established in the knowledge management platform in which teachers could access and share the resources. This longitudinal study was held for one year. The students of these PLC teachers took three waves of mathematics assessments so as to detect the effects of mathematics professional learning community. Results showed these students' mathematics achievement improves gradually. It was concluded that workshops of mathematical pedagogical content knowledge and establishment of knowledge management platform could help teachers for mathematics instruction. Finally, based on the findings, some suggestions for practical instruction and further research were also discussed.