Scaling a technology-based innovation: windows on the evolution of mathematics teachers’ practices

Abstract

This paper reports research on effects on teachers’ classroom practices resulting from their engagement in sustained professional development and classroom teaching of a resource that embeds carefully designed dynamic technology within middle school mathematics (11–14 years). The research investigated the self-reported evolution of teachers’ classroom and departmental practices as they sought to integrate the materials and the technology into their teaching. The sample comprised 203 English middle school mathematics teachers who participated in the professional development and taught the materials during 2013–2014. The methodology used questionnaires, administered to match individual teachers’ teaching schedules, and the resulting data were analyzed quantitatively to give summative statistics, and qualitatively to elicit more nuanced contextualised information. The questionnaire data were thus supplemented by two case studies to illustrate how the trajectory of development of teacher practices was shaped, first by their initial motivations to participate in the innovation, but later more strongly by the ways they chose to align their practices to the institutional goals of their schools in order for the innovation to be sustained.