The Heart of the Matter: An Action Research Case Study on Co-Creating Observation and Reflection Tools to Provide Effective and Meaningful Professional Development for Sixth-Grade Mathematics

Providing effective professional development for mathematics is a key area of research in education due to the ongoing need for coherent, collaborative, and active learning opportunities to sustain educators through policy changes and curriculum shifts. Specifically, professional development must be meaningful and authentic to the local setting and participants while utilizing the global vision of mathematics education and teacher professional learning. The purpose of this action research case study was to: (a) collaborate with a group of stakeholders—made up of sixth-grade teachers, instructional coaches, and district mathematics specialists—to develop an observation and reflection tool and protocol specific to sixth-grade instruct9ion for a new mathematics curriculum; and (b) investigate the process of using a collaboratively structured, participatory action research design to provide professional development and learning specific to mathematics instruction for sixth grade. Stakeholders participated in pre- and post-planning meetings and two action research cycles consisting of collaborative meetings, observations and reflections, focus group interviews, and individual interviews. Data analysis included a collaborative, qualitative, and iterative approach to collect and analyze multiple data sources. These sources included: (a) documents from the collaborative, participatory action research (CPAR) meetings, (b) exit tickets from the CPAR meetings, (c) artifacts from the development of the observation and reflection tool and protocol, (d) audio recordings and subsequent transcription from focus group and individual interviews, and (e) notes and memos from the researcher's journal. Findings from this study were practical for two areas of research that need further development: co-creating the product of an observation and reflection tool and accompanying protocol and using this process to provide intensive, ongoing, and effective PD for educators. This study contributes to the understanding that transformative learning is more likely to occur if teachers and coaches purposefully collaborate to identify local problems, create and test solutions, and reflect on the learning process together.