Teacher participation in continuing professional development : motivating factors and programme effectiveness

Teachers choose to take up professional development courses for different reasons. This paper reports on the motivations of a small group of Maltese secondary school teachers of mathematics in joining a continuing professional development (CPD) programme aiming to support them in Learning to Teach Mathematics through Inquiry (LTMI). During mathematical inquiry, students assume a central active role – wrestling with ideas, asking questions, exploring and explaining meanings – supported by the teacher as a facilitator. This paper also explores teachers’ understandings and their reported experiences of programme effectiveness. A qualitative design using thematic analysis was used to investigate views, experiences and accounts of LTMI features that teachers believed to be effective for their professional learning. The data reported here was taken from a focus group held with teachers at the end of the CPD programme, and three interviews held with the same teachers before, during and after their participation in CPD. Findings reveal intrinsic factors motivating teacher participation, namely: (1) teachers’ will to develop knowledge about teaching; (2) their beliefs about the benefits of inquiry; and (3) their need to change classroom practice. The key aspects that teachers voiced as effective throughout their CPD experience were learning by being part of a community, active learning and immersion in practice-based understandings.peer-reviewe

Learning to teach mathematics through inquiry: a case study of continuing professional development in Malta

In the past decade, local policy documents envisage a shift towards more student-centred and inquiry-based pedagogies. At the same time, the OECD (2009) report shows that Maltese teachers, particularly those of mathematics, while exhibiting constructivist beliefs describe using teacher- centred practices. It appears that, rather than demonstrating unwillingness to adopt student-centred approaches to teaching, Maltese teachers are unprepared to take on the challenge. The provisions of CPD, which have also seen documents proposing the development of school-based learning communities, become crucial towards addressing this issue and hence in preparing teachers for this change. This study focuses on the design of a CPD programme aimed towards supporting teachers in learning to teach mathematics through inquiry (LTMI). LTMI, which offers participation in summer workshops followed by ongoing follow-up meetings, is based upon research-informed principles of effective CPD, namely: offering practice-based learning, the provision of CPD materials, a community of practice component and long-term engagement. In addition, to facilitate the shift to IBL and to make it meaningful to teachers, CPD is designed around four IBL features. This means that the IBL features being promoted as essential for student learning – a task-oriented approach, creating opportunities for collaborative learning, using purposeful questioning and shifting agency and responsibility onto learners – are integrated within the CPD experiences offered to teachers. While investigating the impact that the designed CPD has on teacher development and change towards more IBL practices, this research explores case studies that delve deep into the challenges that Maltese teachers face. Conducted over a period of 14 months, this study looks into contextual factors to explore how these influence the way teachers enact IBL. This study adopts a case study methodology and use five key research instruments to collect data about each case study: semi-structured interviews, teacher questionnaires, lesson observations, teacher lesson journals and a focus group discussion. These data sources were administered at different stages: before, during and at the end of teachers’ participation in LTMI. With this data, the research sought to identify how teachers interpret and enact IBL in their classrooms, the ways in which they structure their IBL lessons and the changes in beliefs and practices that take place over the course of the CPD programme. Data from this research show that teachers’ interpretation of IBL is context- specific and influenced by system restrictions, and the way they operationalise IBL is influenced by how students engage with and respond to the inquiry teaching practices that they offer. In the change process, teachers are likely to go through a phase where they adopt a discovery teaching approach. Moreover, teachers structure their lessons in atypical ways. This appears to be influenced by a number of factors but particularly the tasks they use. Modifications to lesson structure are found to be inevitable as teachers learn about ways of providing purposeful interventions to facilitate the learning process for their students. Over the course of LTMI, teachers also report changes towards more connectionist beliefs – these being more consistent with their inquiry practices. Teachers attribute changes in practice and learning about IBL implementation as emanating and enhanced by their ongoing engagement within a community of practice. The collegial, safe and informal setting contrasted with the isolated and restricting contexts of learning within teachers’ own schools. In supporting the enactment of reform, this thesis offers recommendations towards providing ‘just-in-time’ collaborative learning opportunities for teachers in supporting them with enabling change. Enabling change requires empowering teachers to become autonomous learners in creating their own professional workplace learning networks and assuming professional learning responsibilities

Teaching mathematics through inquiry : a continuing professional development programme design

Over the past decade, European policy makers have promoted the use of inquirybased learning (IBL) approaches in mathematics and science. This paper describes one attempt to design an effective, replicable continuing professional development (CPD) programme that challenges the transmissive practices of teachers and that brings to awareness the pedagogical strategies required for effective IBL. This paper starts by examining IBL and then presents four features for enacting IBL in class. I will show how these four features were used as design principles for the programme – Teaching Mathematics through Inquiry (TMI) – for secondary mathematics teachers in Malta. Finally, the paper exposes the challenges faced when designing and piloting the programme. I illustrate design foundations with examples of products from the pilot project to discuss modifications and reflect on lessons learned.peer-reviewe

Selective combination of visual and thermal imaging for resilient localization in adverse conditions: Day and night, smoke and fire

Long-term autonomy in robotics requires perception systems that are resilient to unusual but realistic conditions that will eventually occur during extended missions. For example, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) need to be capable of operating safely in adverse and low-visibility conditions, such as at night or in the presence of smoke. The key to a resilient UGV perception system lies in the use of multiple sensor modalities, e.g., operating at different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, to compensate for the limitations of a single sensor type. In this paper, visual and infrared imaging are combined in a Visual-SLAM algorithm to achieve localization. We propose to evaluate the quality of data provided by each sensor modality prior to data combination. This evaluation is used to discard low-quality data, i.e., data most likely to induce large localization errors. In this way, perceptual failures are anticipated and mitigated. An extensive experimental evaluation is conducted on data sets collected with a UGV in a range of environments and adverse conditions, including the presence of smoke (obstructing the visual camera), fire, extreme heat (saturating the infrared camera), low-light conditions (dusk), and at night with sudden variations of artificial light. A total of 240 trajectory estimates are obtained using five different variations of data sources and data combination strategies in the localization method. In particular, the proposed approach for selective data combination is compared to methods using a single sensor type or combining both modalities without preselection. We show that the proposed framework allows for camera-based localization resilient to a large range of low-visibility conditions

A practice insight working paper by Laura Formosa and James Calleja

For Laura, being a teacher for the past twelve years and teaching students in a primary school has been a very rewarding and fulfilling experience. Seeing students’ smiling, happy faces daily, eagerly wanting to learn and experience new things, makes her appreciate and reflect on her role as a teacher and the potential impact she has on her students’ lives. As an Art teacher, young students look up to her as their inspiration to get creative; the teacher who motivates them and encourages them to develop their artistic skills; and the teacher who seeks to offer stimulating learning opportunities.peer-reviewe

Zones of enactment in teacher collaboration

This paper reports on zones of enactment (see Spillane, 1999) as a theoretical framework used to study teacher collaboration in a continuing professional development (CPD) programme. Learning to teach mathematics through inquiry (LTMI) is a 14-month CPD programme designed to support secondary school teachers of mathematics in Malta towards inquiry teaching. LTMI, which offers participation in summer workshops followed by ongoing on-the-job meetings, is based upon research-informed principles of effective CPD, including long-term engagement in a community of practice. Due to their personal resources (prior knowledge, beliefs and practices) and contextual conditions, teachers work within different zones of enactment. This paper shows that the interplay between teachers’ personal resources in enacting inquiry and external factors (pupils, policy, public, private and professional sectors) can be investigated through zones of enactment. When teachers’ zones of enactment become social, and involve ongoing negotiation, feedback and support from external factors, teachers become better informed to make changes to their practices.peer-reviewe

Primary school teachers’ perceptions of the leadership role of the assistant head in Malta

This study explores teachers’ perceptions of the leadership role of assistant heads in primary schools in Malta. It draws on teachers’ voice to shed light on the intentional role that assistant heads have in supporting staff and cultivating co-learning relationships. Carried out during a period of ongoing reform in Malta, this research adopts a qualitative design within a constructivist epistemology. A web-based survey taken up by 130 teachers was then followed by three one-to-one in-depth interviews. Data analysis included manual coding following a thematic analysis approach. Findings suggest that teachers recognise the assistant head: (1) as an instructional leader providing educational and emotional support and (2) as a critical friend that engages in dialogue, listens and cares. We conclude that the contemporary assistant head may act as catalyst to support and inspire teachers towards self and school improvement by undertaking deliberate steps that include intentional self-development, leading visibly, reverent listening, purposeful dialogue, care for the wellbeing of those who experience their leadership, and supporting a collaborative work culture.peer-reviewe

Mathematical investigations : the impact of students’ enacted activity on design, development, evaluation and implementation

This paper is based on a year-long action research study that I conducted in a Form Four mathematics class in a girls’ state secondary school in Malta. The focus is on presenting the framework that was used to plan, develop, design, classify, implement and evaluate investigative tasks. This framework hence provides principles and guidelines on examining the differentiation between the tasks as designed and foreseen by the teacher and the actual instructional activities as undertaken by the students. For the teacher-researcher, students’ perspectives become crucial within the developmental cyclic process of designing, modifying, implementing and evaluating tasks. The study reported in this paper shows that when students’ contributions (students’ classroom experiences, responses and understandings) are valued, the teacher-researcher gains more informed knowledge and improved understanding about the design and implementation of investigative tasks.peer-reviewe

Primary school teachers’ perceptions of the leadership role of the assistant head in Malta

This study explores teachers’ perceptions of the leadership role of assistant heads in primary schools in Malta. It draws on teachers’ voice to shed light on the intentional role that assistant heads have in supporting staff and cultivating co-learning relationships. Carried out during a period of ongoing reform in Malta, this research adopts a qualitative design within a constructivist epistemology. A web-based survey taken up by 130 teachers was then followed by three one-to-one in-depth interviews. Data analysis included manual coding following a thematic analysis approach. Findings suggest that teachers recognise the assistant head: (1) as an instructional leader providing educational and emotional support and (2) as a critical friend that engages in dialogue, listens and cares. We conclude that the contemporary assistant head may act as catalyst to support and inspire teachers towards self and school improvement by undertaking deliberate steps that include intentional self-development, leading visibly, reverent listening, purposeful dialogue, care for the wellbeing of those who experience their leadership, and supporting a collaborative work culture.peer-reviewe