Changes in Elementary Math Teachers’ Beliefs and Practice Through Professional Development Partnerships and Curriculum Adoption

Preparing teachers for instructional change is no easy task. For content areas already under the national spotlight, such as mathematics, transitioning to new curriculum materials while concurrently enacting instructional reform creates both a challenge and an opportunity. This paper discusses how professional development (PD) partnerships between two cross-state universities and respective school districts designed and implemented graduate courses for elementary teachers targeted at curricular and instructional reform specific to each district. In this mixed methods case study, we examined the change in participants’ beliefs and practices following PD during mathematics curriculum reform. Our findings support a collaborative, district-university PD model with attention to specific building contexts and global research-based mathematical practices to develop a shared language for high-quality mathematics education. Implications of our research indicate how sustainable PD partnerships can leverage times of immense curricular change as prime opportunities to influence teacher beliefs and practices.