The I Teach Mathematics Online Project: Learning and Teaching through Innovative Practices

Abstract

Providing professional development and support resources that offer additional learning to what teachers might have studied at school, university, and in practice is an increasingly recognized way to support teachers Web-based resources promise to deliver content and pedagogical knowledge in ways enriched by digital technologies. We report on a prototype of a project, I Teach Math project, ITM, developed to deliver pedagogical content knowledge for teaching through problem-solving. ITM was designed from video interviews of selected mathematics teachers on their favorite lessons. On the ITM online database the videos are presented in short clips. Virtual learning objects are used to annotate and illustrate the content. The online environment was harnessed to aid teachers to observe exemplary teaching practices, to build a database of exemplary teaching, and to share ideas on teaching practices. In the process of designing ITM we surveyed existing online projects to select 10 major players for a comparative analysis. This paper reports on the development of ITM. It explores the digital-technologies utilized, the pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical thinking shared by the teachers.