• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 2024

As the limitations of professional development programs and individual attempts to improve teaching expertise have been reported, mathematics teachers have operated various types of teacher learning communities as alternative teacher professional programs. A teacher learning community can be considered a Community of Practice(CoP) in that it satisfies three factors of Cop, which are common purpose, mutual participation, and shared repertoire, so the 'learning' of a teacher community can be interpreted based on the theory of CoP. The purpose of this study is to investigate the process of identity development of five mathematics teachers who have been continuously involved in teacher communities. For this, the researcher collected data on the entire process of community activities through participant observation and conducted individual follow-up interviews to explore mathematics teachers' narratives and personal experiences. Results indicated that mathematics teachers experienced the development of practical knowledge related to mathematics teaching and learning, improvement of teaching practice through continuous reflection and introspection, and recognization the shared value of togethering through community immersion. Based on these experiences, implications for the effective operation of learning communities such as national support of teacher learning communities and horizontal and cooperative teacher norms were discussed, and follow-up research was proposed.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.279-306
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• 2022

The purpose of this case study is to get an implication on elementary pre-service teacher education programs by exploring how a pre-service teacher's noticing changes within a learning community. The pre-service teacher participated in a learning community with researchers. Data includes recordings and transcription of actual class and pre- and post discussion in the learning community, the pre-service teacher's reflection essays, field notes, and students' worksheets. Results are as follows. First, the pre-service teacher's attending moved from the result of tasks to students' mathematical thinking. Second, the pre-service teacher's interpretation changed from a lack of diversity and specificity of evidence to diversity and specificity. Third, the pre-service teacher's decision-makings changed from unproductive deciding to productive deciding.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.47-61
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to suggest a professional development system for elementary teachers who wish enhance mathematical teaching. The learning community on elementary mathematical teaching was composed of fourth grade teachers in a elementary school and an expert from education university. The activities was processed as establishing of objectives and contents of the learning community, discussing and seeing good lesson video, planning the lesson in collaboration with members, practicing the lesson, and reflecting on activities. To analyze these activities, record materials of meetings, lesson videos, member's writing were used. The results reported that the learning community lead teachers to search the method of professional development and showed itself as the effective media to enhance elementary mathematical teaching professionalism.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.185-200
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• 2024

This study explored the changes in the elementary science teaching expertise of teachers who participated in an in-school professional learning community for elementary science instructional research. Six elementary school teachers from grades 4, 5, and 6 at an 18-class S elementary school in a medium-sized city in Chungcheongbuk-do conducted collaborative instructional research on elementary science lessons as part of an in-school professional learning community, which was held 26 times over 7 months in 2020. During the professional learning community, video and audio recordings of the activities, research lessons, course materials, and professional learning community reflection activities were collected for analysis. The collected data were analyzed using qualitative research methods; data processing, reading, note-taking, description, classification, interpretation, reporting, and visualization; and the instructional professionalism elements were extracted based on the instructional professionalism framework. In the early professional learning community activity stages, the participating teachers first discussed their teaching perspectives, their experiences, and their goals for teaching science, which resulted in a selection of research questions. The teachers then collaboratively designed and implemented research lessons for each grade level, after which lesson reflections were conducted. The teachers' abilities to engage in qualitative reflection on the research questions improved after each reflection iteration. It was found that this professional learning community collaborative lesson study experience positively contributed to teaching expertise development. Based on the study findings, the implications for using professional learning communities to improve elementary teachers' science teaching expertise are given.

• School Mathematics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.105-126
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• 2016

Math classes has been regarded as an independent area of a teacher and his/her students of a particular class. In Recent discussions about the professional development of teachers, for the improvement of practices, the point of view of that the community of teachers must work together is spreading. What are the considerations in organization and operation of learning communities for professional development of teachers? In this study, we analyzed the case of the learning community of math teachers in a Science Academy for the purpose of improving math classes to promote the participation of learners. Research results show that teachers share the principles and goals of mathematics teaching through the learning community. Also, through participation in learning communities, the members were practicing the lessons improved by reflection on the lessons of his/her and their colleagues. These results provide implication that it is important to provide opportunities for objectifying his/her classes through the learning community for a substantial improvement in math classes.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.139-155
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• 2015

This study aimed to investigate teacher learning in the context of a community. For the purpose of this study, two research questions about the kinds of teacher noticing in a community and the role of partnership were addressed. To build a learning community, a professional development project, PRIME, established partnerships with 11 high schools and one of the cluster meetings were investigated in this study. Three mentor teachers, three preservice teachers, and one university supervisor participated in the cluster meeting. For this study, the multiple data such as audio tapes of cluster meetings, observation notes, and interviews were analyzed using the analysis of narratives. The results showed that the participants engaged in different kinds of noticing of their own beliefs about teaching and learning, teacher practices, and teacher identities including noticing of students' understanding in classroom situations. The partnership played the crucial role of reinforcing relationships among teachers, assigning tasks, and creating various communities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.297-310
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• 2021

This study explores the characteristics of within-school and across-school science teacher professional learning communities (hereafter, PLC) qualitatively. In-depth focus group interviews were conducted with science teachers belonging to seven PLCs within the science core school and three PLCs across schools. Interview questions include identity and motivation, major activities, and outcomes of PLC, as well as shortcomings and support plans for PLC. The results include both within-school and across-school science teacher PLCs formed for professional development related to science teaching and learning. Both science PLCs participated in the study showed the characteristics of a 'practice community' that developed a cooperative relationship through reciprocal participation, focusing on shared issues among members. Regarding issues, within-school PLCs focused on microscopic problems such as curriculum reconstruction of subject-matter, while across-school PLCs focused on macro problems such as teacher professional development. Regarding activities and roles as PLC, within-school and across-school science PLCs shared such features as collaborative professional development, and interpersonal education such as mentoring for novice teachers. In terms of PLC's influence and outcomes, science teacher PLCs has a positive effect not only on the teachers themselves, but also on the students and the teacher culture in the school. In addition, science teacher PLCs need improvement of the physical conditions for community operation, and software support such as protocol provision for PLC operation and joint research or re-education with universities. In particular, joint research between universities and science teacher PLCs shows the future orientation of the PLC as an 'inquiry community'. Based on the results, the necessity of active support for science PLC, the necessity of developing a cooperative system between science teacher PLC and universities, and ways to spread the PLC of science core schools to that of general schools were proposed.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.373-395
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• 2010

In this research, I reported the activities of learning community on elementary mathematics which is consist of 1 university researcher 4 elementary teachers. The main activities of learning community are as follows: establishing objectives and contents of learning community, writing the critical essay on elementary mathematics lesson, and reflecting on the activities of learning community. The establishment of objectives and contents of learning community was built through agreement between university researcher and elementary teachers. In addition to, the members of learning community could share the idea and difficulties on elementary mathematics lesson and increase the professional development on elementary mathematics lesson by criticizing the lesson together.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.143-157
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• 2003

This paper is to make strides toward an enriched understanding of mathematics teacher learning and professional development. Different theoretical frameworks in understanding mathematics teacher learning are reviewed, followed by a discussion of the relationships of knowledge and teaching practice. This paper then analyses contemporary conceptions about effective professional development and, in particular, deals with teacher learning in inquiry communities. This paper introduces a research project describing transition processes from teacher- centered mathematics classroom culture to student-centered culture and analyzing teacher learning in communities and its concomitant change in teaching practice. On the basis of the emerging problems in doing the project, this paper finally addresses some crucial issues on teacher learning and professional development, including the management of an inquiry community, the description of teaching practice from the researcher's perspective, and the analysis of teacher learning in communities.

• Korean Journal of Child Education & Care
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.27-43
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the child care teachers experience about professional vision development through participating in video clubs with their peers while watching videos about their interactions with children in the classroom. Methods: We selected three child care teachers in a day care center in Seoul area and conducted the qualitative case study. Video clubs were designed to support the quality of teacher-child interaction by developing child-care teachers' professional vision. And the video clubs used the self-reflection process and cooperative self-reflection process as an important educational method. Results: Teachers were able to experience the change of attention in watching their interaction scene through the 4-time video club participation and to have opportunity for educational (knowledge based) reasoning. Particularly, through participation in the video club, the teacher could pay attention to teachers' intention, teachers' decision making process, and child's intention. In addition, through video club participation, the teachers experienced educational interpretation based on children's thinking and interest; and reasoning through reflective thinking about the results of teaching behavior. This change of professional vision was possible through mutual scaffolding through cooperative reflection among participating teachers. Conclusion/Implications: Based on the results of this study we discussed the importance of the professional vision development of the child care teachers and the effectiveness of the video club for supporting their professional vision development.