Supporting elementary school teachers enhance their mathematics instruction through invented strategies and classroom discourse

This study shares the outcome of a professional development program designed to support elementary school teachers reform their mathematics instruction using classroom discourse and invented strategies with whole number and fraction computations. A total of 21 elementary school teachers from eight schools in the southern part of the United States took part in the professional development program that consisted of 10 days of Summer Institute and 14 monthly meetings—spanning a 2-year period. The results of the study revealed that the participants enhanced their pedagogical content knowledge in whole number and fraction computations using invented strategies (evidenced by the gains from their pretest to posttest scores), improved their instructional practices in orchestrating classroom discourse (supported by the classroom videos submitted by the participants for monthly meetings discussions), and had begun changing their classroom instructions, particularly, with respect to using productive talk in teaching mathematics. The participants also reported some challenges they encountered in their efforts to transfer the knowledge they acquired from the professional development program to their classrooms. Characteristics that contributed to the success of the program, as well as implications for teacher education and professional development are presented.