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Ben Orlin's avatar

I sometimes think about three possible levels of analysis:

1. The universal level, which I think corresponds to your idea of simplicity: e.g., "Care deeply for your students, and seek to understand their lives." Ideas at this level apply to all teachers everywhere.

2. The level of the society or the community: e.g., "Black students in the U.S. have a shared experience of..." or "First-generation college students have often been told..." Ideas in this level may apply across cities, states, or even countries, but we can also imagine teaching environments where they wouldn't be super-relevant. (E.g., the sociology of U.S. racism is less relevant if you teach in China; the hallmarks of first-gen U.S. college students are less relevant if you teach 2nd grade in Finland.)

3. The level of individual classrooms and students: e.g., "My student Dan was telling me he struggles to find a quiet place to do homework because..." Ideas at this level apply to nobody but me (and maybe a couple of my co-teachers).

It seems like conferences and PD often aim for the middle level. Which makes sense. The universal level can devolve into platitudes; the individual level can devolve into isolated experiences; the societal level aims at things we all share in common, and can thus (maybe!) talk about fruitfully.

The trouble is that the societal level is, as you're pointing out, the most complex and flow-chart-y. "Because of [complex historical pattern], we find [complex sociological pattern], which means that [statistical generality] unless [exception created by different historical pattern]..." That's how I hear your concern about overly intricate PD. This societal level tends to call for a lot of specialized historical and sociological vocabulary.

I'd speculate that the best PD touches all three levels. "Here's a universal value we share. Here's a story of how I struggled to live out that value with a particular student or class. And here's a takeaway about the ways we all (in this society) can reach for that value."

I think Mandy's suggestions (e.g., "What if we thought about teaching math like rough draft and revising?") can work in this way. The speaker articulates a universal reason this might be a fruitful metaphor; teachers share individual experiences in light of that metaphor; and by this process, we all build a shared (societal) understanding of how the metaphor might (or might not) help guide us.

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Brian R. Lawler's avatar

People learn math when they think and interact. The teachers role is to provoke, nurture, nudge thinking and manage (minimally) peer interactions.

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