This paper describes a professional development project for primary school teachers which sought to use similar pedagogies with the teachers to those that were being advocated in their classroom practice. It was funded by a grant from the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics and some additional funding from a London education authority. The professional development model was based on a replication at primary level of the “Improving Learning in Mathematics” project (Department for Education and Skills 2005) with secondary and further education mathematics teachers. We extended and modified the materials in order to make them suitable and relevant to teachers of mathematics in primary classrooms. The approach of the course was based within the theoretical tradition of collaborative practice and active learning (Swan 2006) The course consisted of six fortnightly sessions over a school term. These were based on themes such as: learning from errors and misconceptions; learning activities; classroom discussion; questioning and formative assessment. At each session a selection of activities for children relevant to the theme were tried and discussed by the participants who were then encouraged to try these or similar activities in their primary school classrooms, reflect with a colleague on their success or otherwise and report back at the next meeting. This approach is supported by the research literature on the characteristics of effective professional development (PD). Using new ideas in classrooms and then reflecting on them is advocated by Adler (2000), Clarke and Clarke (2005) and Jaworski and Watson (1994) amongst others. Cordingley, Bell et al (2003) stress the role of collaboration and discussion in learning and development of teaching practice. The need to address teachers’ underlying beliefs for changes in practice to take place is emphasised by Wilson and Goldenberg (1998). Swan (2006) has built on these research findings in developing his professional development programme and our adaptations of his programme remain grounded on the same principles. Swan advocates working with teachers on mathematical activities during professional development sessions and asks teachers to be prepared to try them with their students even if they do not believe they will prove successful. His experience showed that once the teachers had tried the activities they became convinced that they were effective despite their initial reservations. He also found that teachers who had collegial support in implementing these new activities were more successful in continuing to use them and it was for this reason that we invited at least two teachers from each participating school to join our course.

This constitutes a small scale study of a group of teachers and is based on classroom observations of mathematics teaching both before and after the professional development course, observations of professional development sessions including the analysis of an activity exploring teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and teaching and learning mathematics and semi-structured interviews with a sample of the teachers involved. Additional data about pupils’ learning and attitudes was gathered as part of the research project but this is not analysed in this paper. Discourse analysis was used to examine the transcripts of audio recordings of the observed lessons and a theoretical framework developed as part of an earlier study (Back 2004) formed part of the analysis and examined the mathematical and social nature of the talk. In addition, a quantitative assessment was made of the proportion of talk spoken by the teachers during mathematics lessons in their classrooms both before and after the course. The interviews were used to assess the teachers’ immediate perceptions of the longer-term effect the course had had on their teaching.

Results so far analysed indicate that in most of the lessons prior to the course the teachers adopted a transmission style. This was dominated by their own talk; pupils were offered predominantly procedural tasks, were asked closed questions and made very little use of thinking skills. The main technique was one of explanation by the teacher followed by practice of routines by the pupils. Observations of lessons in the term following the PD course have indicated a substantial change away from teacher dominated lessons towards a climate of more discussion with and between pupils. The evidence collected shows that allowing opportunities for pupils to be involved in mathematical thinking, discussion and problem solving appeared to be valued strategies. As far as could be ascertained, such methods were observed to be substantially and permanently adopted by the teachers who took part with the declared intention that they should continue.