This proposal presents findings from the ongoing project Leadership and Learning for the Development of Teachers’ Professional Digital Competence (LeadDig), which involves five schools over a three-year period.

In a review of research on digital technology integration in mathematics education, Dockendorff and Gomez Zaccarelli (2025) demonstrate that successful use of digital tools depends less on access to technology and more on teachers’ collective professional learning, pedagogical coordination, and systemic support.

The overall aim of the project is to strengthen teachers’ professional digital and assessment competence in order to improve students’ learning opportunities when digital tools are used in teaching.

Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 2001) is employed as a developmental and analytical framework to support the establishment and analysis of a shared object related to the use of digital tools across subjects, with particular emphasis on mathematics.

This sub-study follows one lower secondary school participating in the project. At this school, a shared object was collaboratively formulated: How can leadership-supported teacher collaboration contribute to learning through the use of digital tools?

While leadership support constitutes an important condition for the collaborative work, the analytical focus of this sub-study is on the mathematics teachers’ collective activity and how the shared object is translated into concrete instructional practices involving digital tools.

During the first year of the project, two development questions were identified specifically for the mathematics department:  (1) How can teachers facilitate productive student collaboration when digital tools are used? (2) How can teachers ensure equal access for students to engage in substantive mathematical activity using digital tools?

The study employs a mixed-method, design-based approach informed by CHAT and practice-based professional learning. During autumn 2024, unstructured classroom observations (Given, 2008) were conducted across subjects with a focus on mathematics and digital tool use. Field notes were written in a narrative style, and the researchers acted as observer-as-participant. To gain insight into students’ reasoning about the use of digital tools in mathematics, a web-based questionnaire was administered. Students responded to open- and closed-ended questions about their experiences with digital tools, and their responses were structured in tables. Some closed-ended items used a four-point Likert scale (Albaum, 1997). In line with methodological recommendations (Cohen et al., 2018), equal distances between categories were used (“disagree”, “partially disagree”, “partially agree”, “agree”), representing ordinal data (Stevens, 1946). As a result of the experience from the first year, the collaboration model was redesigned for year two. First the project in the last year focuses mainly on mathematic teachers. Secondly, the joint observations and analyses of lessons is expanded to included co-planning of the lesson that is being observed, drawing on cycles of enactment and investigation (Lampert et al., 2013) and Norwegian adaptations (Kazemi & Wæge, 2015; Mosvold, Fauskanger & Wæge, 2018). The mathematics team (n=6) now engages in joint planning, enactment by one teacher, structured observation using predefined foci, and joint reflection. Teacher time-outs (Mosvold, Wæge & Fauskanger, 2023) are incorporated to support real-time professional noticing. Three full cycles will be conducted in spring 2026. Data sources include observation notes, planning artefacts, audio recordings, and reflective discussions . The final phase of the study draws on CHAT to analyze how the involved teachers collaboration develops over time. The analysis focuses on how the shared object of improving mathematics teaching with digital tools is negotiated and transformed through joint planning, classroom enactment, and collective reflection. We will look at tensions and contradictions in the collaboration, as well as toward how organizational arrangements, roles, and mediating artefacts shape the teachers’ collective activity. These analyses provide insight into how shared ownership of mathematics teaching and collective professional digital competence are developed.

In the first project year, joint observations and analyses of lessons across subjects were conducted, but several challenges emerged: teachers felt positioned in a justificatory role and not in a learning situation, colleagues lacked insight into planning of the lesson observed, and not all participants taught the subject the lesson focused on. Classroom observations also revealed that students mainly worked individually with digital tools (also confirmed by the web-based questionnaire), teachers conceptualized adaptation as giving different tasks to different students, and collaboration among mathematics teachers was limited. With the new organization of the project, two categories of expected outcomes are anticipated: 1. Professional learning and shared pedagogical understanding The collaboration cycles are expected to lead to a more coherent and collectively developed understanding of what constitutes high quality use of digital tools in mathematics teaching at the school. Through joint planning, shared enactment, structured observation and collective reflection, teachers are likely to develop a stronger shared language for instruction, a common set of principles for equitable digital tool use, and a deeper, collectively negotiated view of what meaningful mathematical activity looks like for all students. 2. Sustainable organizational structures for mathematics teacher collaboration A further outcome concerns the establishment of long term, leadership supported structures for ongoing collaboration among the mathematics teachers. By involving school leaders directly in analyzing lessons, framing priorities, and supporting the collaboration model, the project aims to institutionalize routines for joint planning, shared enactment, professional dialogue, and coordinated development work. These structures are expected to extend beyond the project period and contribute to lasting capacity building within the mathematics department. Findings from the three planned cycles conducted in spring 2026 will be analyzed before summer 2026 and presented at ECER 2026.

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