Transcript The Identification, Development, and Investigation of

Utilizing Distance Education to Offer
Web-based Professional Development
in Statistics Education to Teachers
Across Europe
Efstathios Mavrotheris
Maria Meletiou-Mavrotheris
Cyprus College
Presentation Overview
 Background to the project EarlyStatistics
 Project Aims and Objectives
 Pedagogical framework
 Project Activities
 Concluding Remarks
Background to the Project
Importance of Statistics Education
 Statistics education is becoming the focus of
reformers in mathematics education as a vital
aspect of the education of citizens in democratic
societies (NCTM, 2000)
 The ability to analyze, interpret and communicate
information from data are fundamental skills for
daily life and effective citizenship
 Statistical concepts are occupying an increasingly
important role in mathematics curricula
 Statistics already established as a vital part of the
K-12 math curriculum in many countries
Poor Teacher Training in Statistics
 Statistics introduced into mainstream mathematics
curricula without adequate attention to teacher
professional development
 Substantial evidence of poor understanding and
insufficient preparation to teach statistical concepts
among pre-service and practicing teachers
 Focus of instruction on the procedural aspects of
statistics, and not on conceptual understanding
(Nicholson & Darnton, 2003; Watson, 2001)
 Intuitions and mindset about data systematically
ignored in the mathematics classroom
Traditional Approaches to Teacher
Professional Development
 Professional isolation of teachers
 Limited opportunities for professional
development
 Very limited opportunities for collegial interactions
and exchanges
 Individualistic approaches to teacher professional
development
Need for New Approaches to
Teacher Professional Development
 Grown satisfaction with traditional approaches to
teacher professional development
 Recognition of need for adopting new approaches
to produce real changes in classroom practices
 New pedagogical models that foster a culture of
sharing and sustained support for teachers
 Opportunities for teachers to engage in
collaborative learning communities where they can
exchange ideas with other teachers and garner
support as they try new strategies in their
classrooms (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999)
WWW: Opening New Possibilities
for Professional Development
 Web-based training opens up new
possibilities for communication and
collaboration among teachers
 Can overcome restrictions of shrinking
resources and geographical locations and
offer, in a cost-effective and non-disruptive
way, high quality collaborative learning
experiences to teachers
 Possible for teachers in different countries to
collaborate and build communities of practice
in social constructivist learning environments
Communities of Practice
 A construct grounded in an anthropological
perspective that examines how adults learn
through social practices (Gray, 2004)
 Consists of a group of individuals with a
shared domain of expertise, who engage in a
process of collective learning about practices
that matter to them (Wenger, 1998; Gray,
2004)
 Collaborative and participatory communities of
teachers have been shown to act as vehicles
that promote teacher learning and
development (Tinker & Haavind, 1996)
The Socrates-Comenius Project
EarlyStatistics
EarlyStatistics: Project Overview
 A 3-year project (Oct. 2005-Sept. 2008) funded by
the EU under the Socrates-Comenius action
 Consortium comprised of five partner institutions in
four EU countries: Cyprus, Greece, Norway, Spain
 Overall aim: Enhance development of early
statistical reasoning of European children by
facilitating intercultural professional development of
their teachers using exemplary web-based
educational tools and resources
 Project will harness the power of the Internet to
provide European teachers with access to a wide
array of colleagues, discussions, and resources
eluding them in their workplace (Zern, 2002)
EarlyStatistics: Project Overview
 Design of program based on the belief that learning
as part of a community of practice can provide a
useful model for teacher professional development
 Teachers will form a virtual community of practice
that will help them improve their PCK of statistics by
exchanging experiences, ideas, and resources and
relating them to their teaching practices
 Project will support educationally useful humancomputer interactions through innovative tools and
resources, but its focus will be on exploiting
technology to support human-human interactions
 Will promote intercultural awareness and exchange
of experiences and ideas among European teachers
Project Aims and Objectives
 Developing and pilot testing an intercultural online
professional development course in statistics
education for elementary and middle school
teachers based on current pedagogical
methodologies (collaboration, statistical
investigation, exploration with online interactive
problem-solving activities)
 Conducting a teaching intervention into the
statistics classrooms of teachers attending the pilot
professional development course
 Developing a multilingual knowledge base to
support and promote the program’s activities and
objectives
Project Aims and Objectives
 Initializing networking among teachers across
Europe by building an online community for the
exchange of ideas, tools, and instructional
practices relating to statistics education. Long-term
objective to sustain and expand this community
into a pan-European network of communication
 Developing a pedagogical framework for the
effective delivery of high-quality online teacher
professional development in statistics education
through the establishment of a virtual community of
practice
Pedagogical Approach
 Program design guided by contemporary visions of
web-based instruction and computer-mediated
communication which support more participatory
models of education
 Distance education environment designed as a
framework for flexible learning, regarding teachers
as the main agents of their professional
development, supported by an environment rich in
challenges and interactions
 Adoption of “learning” and “community rather than
“instructional” models of professional development
 Emphasis on promoting interactive learning and
cross-cultural exchange of experiences and ideas
Pedagogical Approach (cont.)
 Forming of an online community of practice that
will support the sharing of multiple, multinational
perspectives, and will shape not only teachers’
identity as practitioners, but also the identity of the
practice itself (Gray, 2004)
 Teachers will learn together about statistics by
engaging in joint activities and discussions, helping
each other, and sharing information
 Use of strategies (e.g. open-ended investigations,
simulations, visualizations, collaboration and
reflection on each other’s ideas) that will serve as
a model to the participating teachers as to kind of
learning situations, technologies and curricula they
should employ in their own classrooms
Project Activities
Development of course content
 Development, using contemporary technological
and web-based resources, of curricular and
instructional materials on statistics for elementary
and middle school teachers and students
 Central to the development of the material the
functional integration of technology with existing
core curricular ideas
 Integration of new types of tools (e.g. the dynamic
statistics software Fathom and Tinkerplots), which
provide students with the opportunity to model and
investigate real world problems of statistics
 Material produced in partners’ national languages
(Greek, Norwegian, Spanish), as well as in English
Development of knowledge base
Technical design and implementation of the
infrastructure and services for a dedicated
knowledge base, implemented as a multilingual
web portal that will support the project activities
and outputs. Knowledge base will contain:
 A hypertextbook with the material, resources, and
activities of the professional development course;
 Technologically enhanced curricular and instructional
materials for the teaching and learning of statistics in
elementary and middle school;
 Reports and articles developed through the project;
 Links to statistics education resources available on the
Internet;
Development of knowledge base
 A Video Case Library containing segments of real
teaching episodes, obtained in the classrooms of the
teachers participating in the project, representing the
landscape of practice in statistics instruction in Europe;
 A database containing Student Work Samples developed
through contributions of participating teachers, providing
examples of good practice in European schools
 Tools for professional dialogue and support (e.g.
discussion forums, chat rooms, application sharing etc.)
Aim to build an open knowledge-building and
sharing environment that will foster sustained
participation and will allow teachers to take an
active role and ownership for the creation of their
community
Pilot delivery of professional
development course
 During final year of project, course will be pilot
tested with a group of 25-30 teachers from the
partner countries, and revised based on feedback
received from pilot testing
 Delivered through text, illustrations, animations,
audio/video, technology-rich interactive problemsolving activities, and multilingual interfaces
 Instructional content and services on the dedicated
knowledge base will be utilized for teaching,
support and coordination purposes
 Course material also available in CD/DVD format to
overcome potential bandwidth limitations
Pilot delivery of professional
development course
 Course duration around 13 weeks.
 Largest portion of course delivered asynchronously
 Some synchronous delivery through use of
technologies such as digital blackboards, audio/video
streaming, and videoconferencing
 One-way informational postings such as articles and
videos will serve as objects for supporting interaction
 Course will be facilitated by consortium members with
expertise in statistics education. Their role will be to
guide discussions, encourage full, thoughtful
involvement of all participants, and provide feedback
Pilot delivery of professional
development course
 Teachers will work according to a loose schedule
 Each week will typically involve a range of
activities, readings and contributions to discussion,
as well as completion of group assignments. Online
moderated discussions will allow teachers to share
content, ideas, and instructional strategies
 Course will be made of three parts:
Part 1 (weeks 1-4): Emphasis on enriching the
participants’ content knowledge of statistics by exposing
them to similar kinds of learning situations, technologies,
and curricula to those they should employ in their own
classrooms
Pilot delivery of professional
development course
Part 2 (weeks 5-8): Focus on children’s learning.
Exploring of a broad range of topics of interest to the
statistics teacher (e.g. computer-supported teaching, role
of statistics in the national and European mathematics
curricula, common student misconceptions, etc.)
Part 3 (weeks 9-13): Undertaking of a teaching
experiment. Teachers will customize and expand upon
provided materials, and apply them in their own
classrooms with the support of the design team. They will
report on their experiences to the other teachers in their
group, and will also provide samples of their students’
work for group reflection and evaluation. Teachers will
exchange insights as to how to further improve their
practices and increase their students’ achievement
Development of pedagogical framework
 Developed jointly by the pedagogical and technical
experts in the project team, framework will provide
expert and practitioner recommendations for
effective delivery of online professional
development to teachers of statistics through the
establishment of a virtual community of practice
 Will incorporate both pedagogical and technical
considerations regarding delivery of online
professional development (e.g. limitations in
equipment, software, and network bandwidth)
 Focus will be on the development of usable
technological structures that support the
community’s shared purpose and encourage
online dialogue and collaboration among members
Concluding Remarks
 One of the most important factors in any
educational change is the change in teaching
practices
 Taking into account best practices in statistics
education, adult education, and distance learning,
EarlyStatistics aims to help European teachers
improve their instructional practices in statistics
through exposure to exemplary learning
methodologies and resources, intercultural
awareness, and exchange of experiences
 Teachers will be able to connect and learn from
each other in ways that would not have been
possible in a more traditional, face-to-face
professional development program
Concluding Remarks
In addition to teachers, project outputs and
services will also benefit other target groups:
 Students will benefit from improved curricula and
teaching practices
 Academic experts and material developers will get
more sensitized to the needs of statistics teachers
in different countries, supporting the development
of new methodologies and materials
 National and transnational education authorities
responsible for setting mathematics curricula will
get useful information regarding new
developments in statistics education
Concluding Remarks
 Teacher training institutions will gain a clearer
understanding of the issues facing statistics
teaching and learning and will be able to utilize the
project outputs for further improvement of their
teacher preparation programs
 Online professional development designers will
benefit from access to the pedagogical framework
for the effective delivery of high-quality online
professional development to mathematics
teachers, which could also act as a model for
professional development in other content areas
 The industry and community in general will benefit
from a statistically literate society