While rural communities are not monolithic, many have seen recent shifts in demographics from historically homogenous populations to more racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse residents (e.g., Sharp & Lee, 2017; Brenner, 2016). Such shifts can occur very rapidly as new regional economic, social, or political forces emerge and are…

This paper analyzed elementary teacher education (hereafter 'TED') programs in the top performing European (TIMSS) countries to help inform future elementary TED policy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methodological emphasis revolved around how much emphasis should be placed on general content knowledge (GCK), as opposed to general pedagogical…

We posit that professional development (PD) models fall on a continuum from highly adaptive to highly specified, and that these constructs provide a productive way to characterize and distinguish among models. The study reported here examines the impact of an adaptive mathematics PD model on teachers' knowledge and instructional practices as well…

This paper reviews Ghana's performance in the TIMSS 2011 survey in comparison with other African and some high performing countries which participated in the TIMSS assessment. Students' achievement in the science content areas assessed were summarized and teacher preparation constructs of teachers of the students who took part in the assessment…

Professional development--formal in-service training to upgrade the content knowledge and pedagogical skills of teachers--is widely viewed as an important means of improving teaching and learning. While many interventions "include" professional development, professional development was the central intervention of the two recent research and…

In this presentation, we introduce a conceptual framework for in-service professional development--the Whole Teacher approach, which attends simultaneously to the attitudes, knowledge, and practice of a teacher's growth. Putting the framework in operation, we describe a project designed to improve teachers' competence and increase children's…

Thirty-five teachers teaching advanced topics in high school mathematics were engaged in a year-long intensive professional development project intended to increase their Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching in the area of discrete mathematics. Project activities embodied a models and modeling perspective on pedagogy and learning. Results showed…

This article examines the impact of implementing module-based professional development for teachers (MBPDT) in the Philippines. A mixed-method study, experimental design with empirical surveys and an open-ended questionnaire revealed that the experimental group of teachers had greater professional content knowledge compared with the control group…

Reforms in mathematics education call for K-12 teachers to employ standards-based pedagogies, which embody the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics' principles and standards. In order to effectively support teachers' implementation of standards-based curricula, professional development must be provided that meets teachers' needs. The…

This paper reports on a study conducted on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2005 database. The purpose of the study was to examine predictors of student achievement using middle school mathematics teacher professional development items as criterion variables, such as the number of mathematics courses taken, the number of…

This report presents findings about teacher quality from two longitudinal studies, the National Longitudinal Study of "No Child Left Behind" (NLS-"NCLB"), and the Study of State Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality Under "No Child Left Behind" (SSI-"NCLB"). The research teams for these two…

This is a record of the proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of the conference is "Mathematics: Essential research, essential practice." The theme draws attention to the importance of developing and maintaining links between research and practice and…