Examining teachers' knowledge on a large scale involves addressing substantial measurement and logistical issues; thus, existing teacher knowledge assessments have mainly consisted of selected-response items because of their ease of scoring. Although open-ended responses could capture a more complex understanding of and provide further insights…

Instruments designed to measure teachers' knowledge for teaching mathematics have been widely used to evaluate the impact of professional development and to investigate the role of teachers' knowledge in teaching and student learning. These instruments assess a mixture of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. However, little…

In this paper, we focus on the design of assessments of mathematics teachers' knowledge by emphasising the importance of identifying the purpose for the assessment, defining the specific construct to be measured, and considering the affordances of particular psychometric models on the development of assessments as well as how they are able to…

Teachers' mathematical knowledge has important consequences for the quality of the learning environment they create for their students to learn mathematics. Yet relatively little is known about how teachers reason proportionally, despite the fact that proportional reasoning is foundational for several mathematics concepts and that ratios and…

Teachers' understanding of the concepts they teach affects the quality of instruction and students' learning. This study used a sample of 303 teachers from across the USA to examine elementary school mathematics teachers' knowledge of key concepts underlying fraction arithmetic. Teachers' explanations were coded based on the accuracy of their…

Prior work on teachers' mathematical knowledge has contributed to our understanding of the important role of teachers' knowledge in teaching and learning. However, one aspect of teachers' mathematical knowledge has received little attention: "strategic competence for word problems." Adapting from one of the most comprehensive…

This study examines the role of several key features of professional development (PD) in bringing about changes in teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching. Artifacts (e.g., PD tasks, materials, and agendas) of the PD activities completed by 542 teachers in 21 different Mathematics and Science Partnership programs were coded based on the core…

The success of professional development programs has typically been determined based on their impact on teacher learning, without much attention being given to the data sources used. Large-scale studies have generally relied on teachers' self-reports, whereas small-scale studies have included more direct assessments and observations of teacher…

This study explores the dimensionality of mathematical knowledge needed by elementary school teachers. Specifically, we focus on the construct of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching to investigate whether common mathematical content knowledge (the generic mathematical knowledge that is held by an educated adult), specialized content knowledge (the…

In this study, I examined the relationship between teachers' mathematical knowledge and instruction. Twenty-one K-8 teachers who were enrolled in a master's program were followed for 3 years to study how their mathematical knowledge and teaching changed over time. The results of multilevel growth models indicated that gains in teachers'…

This longitudinal study examines growth in teacher knowledge as measured by two popular assessments--Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT) and Diagnostic Teacher Assessments in Mathematics and Science (DTAMS). Using data collected from 24 teachers, we compare the extent to which each assessment captured teacher learning during a K-8 mathematics…

This article describes the lessons learned during the implementation of a new master's degree program for K-8 teachers. The program's goal was to increase student inquiry and sense making in mathematics and science classrooms. Each of the twenty-four teacher participants reported strong satisfaction with the program, and a variety of measures…