Research – and development projects are often seen as a means for teachers’ professional development. The organisation of such projects can be based on different theoretical frameworks and conscientiously follow the setup of action research, design research, etc. In Danish teacher education, there is a tradition of professional development based on collaboration projects between educators, students and teachers in various combinations. Some of these projects are well-structured and well described, and carried out within a theoretical framework explicitly declared and argued for. But in general this is not always the case. In 2006 – 2008 a cluster of 17 Danish research and development projects in connection with mathematics  teacher education were carried out for NAVIMAT (National Knowledge Centre for Mathematics Education), all organised with research contacts (Andresen 2011a)in an intended ‘learning community’ structure labelled ‘Project Forum’. The external evaluation (Ejersbo 2010) of the activities in Project Forum revealed, amongst others, a lack of alignment between the project’s and the participants’ intensions, interpretations and expected outcome. This lead to question whether the institutional setting described in Andresen (2011b) were designed suitable to support the participants’ professional outcome of the projects.

The aims of this paper are:

A.      To present a framework for analysis of institutional settings for teachers’ and educators’ professional development and

B.      To discuss the potentials for the participants in the NAVIMAT Project Forum’s projects to get into sustainable professional development and to point out a new direction of research

Framework for analysis

The paper presents the’ NCM-paradigm’ established in ( Henriksen and Andresen 2010) as a frame for analysis of potentials for professional development.This frame was created for study and evaluation of the Swedish ‘Mathematics Project’ run by ‘Myndigheten for skolutveckling , MSU, (Department for School development) 2006 – 2008. The NCM-paradigm was based on Myndigheten för Skolutveckling (2003) and Mouwitz (2001) under the impact of ‘Principles and Standards for School Mathematics’ and ‘Before its Too late’ from NCTM. Mouwitz’s advises are summed up into a number of viable approaches to competence development programs.  To create the ‘NCM-paradigm’ these were aligned with recent research within the field, represented in Lester (2007). Sowder (2007) addresses what it means to prepare teachers of mathematics and to provide them, with the professional learning opportunities they need for professional development. A number of such relevant issues were chosen by the author and bullets from the Swedish foundation were assigned. In this way the ‘NCM-paradigm’ was established as a theoretical framework, on the one hand in accordance with the prevailing research paradigm(s) of Western Europe and  USA (as formulated by the NCTM) and on the other hand tailored to meet national requests set up for example by the Swedish educational system, the teacher education’s structure, content and values etc. According to the author’s impression and experiences, the Swedish and Danish educational systems are close enough to each other to ensure that the NCM-paradigm is suitable for analyses of Danish teachers’ and educators’ development too.

Andresen, M. (2011a). Forsknings- og udviklingsprojekter i læreruddannelsen i matematik. In Forskningsbaseret undervisning – realiteter og potentialer. Proceedings fra 10. Majkonference i naturvidenskabsdidaktik, København 18 – 19. Maj 2010.IND’s skriftserie nr. 21/2011. ISSN: 1602-2149 pp107 - 118 Andresen, M. (2011b). Didaktisk viden genereret i NAVIMAT? (Knowledge about education generated in NAVIMAT). In: Andresen, M. (ed.). Viden om lærere - lærerviden. (Knowledge about teachers - teachers' knowledge). Pp. 214 - 231. Copenhagen, NAVIMAT ISBN 879239706-9. Ejersbo, L. (2010). Evaluering af Projektforum: Et læringsfællesskab om og med projekter I matematiklæring. NAVIMAT (findes på http://navimat.dk/42294/) Henriksen, B. and Andresen, M. (2010). Effective, long-range developments – evaluation of a national initiative - report on the Mathematics Project, 2006 – 2008. http://www.skolverket.se/sb/d/2129/a/11992 49 pages. Copenhagen. NAVIMAT ISBN: 978-87-91786-00-6 Lester, Frank K. Jr., (2007). Second Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, USA Mouwitz, L. (2001). Hur kan lärare lära? – Internationella erfarenheter med focus på matematikutbildning ( How can teachers learn? – International experiences focused on mathematics education) Nationellt Centrum för Matematikutbildning, Göteborg, Sweden Myndigheten för Skolutveckling (2003), ”Att granska och förbättra kvalitet”. Finns att ladda ner på http://www.skolverket.se/publikationer?id=1875 Sowder, Judith T., (2007). The mathematical education and development of teachers. In Lester, Frank K. Jr., (2007). Second Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, USA pp 157-224.