Facilitators’ noticing of teachers’ responses to student thinking concerning a multiplicative thinking task

Shure, Victoria; Stahnke, Rebekka; Rösken-Winter, Bettina; Götze. Daniela

Abstract

Professional development (PD) courses are crucial for the advancement of mathematics education, necessitating that facilitators have specific expertise for navigating complex instructional scenarios. Through a situated examination, this study explores facilitators’ (N = 147) noticing of a fictional PD situation concerning multiplication, specifically their use of knowledge elements. Overall, when perceiving student thinking in a fictional PD situation, few facilitators were able to perceive and identify appropriate knowledge elements concerning the multiplication task. In terms of the interpretation of and decision-making related to teachers’ responses to students’ solutions, about half of the facilitators could only superficially interpret a student’s solution to reflect the embedded knowledge elements and focused on aspects not relevant to the situation. These findings provide insights for aligning future PD courses to better serve the distinct needs of facilitators.