Mathematics professional development for elementary teachers: Building trust within a school-based mathematics education community

ARTICLE IN PRESS

0742-051X/$ - s

doi:10.1016/j.ta

�Correspondfax: +1706 542

E-mail addr

Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 970–984

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Mathematics professional development for elementary teachers:Building trust within a school-based mathematics education

community

Paola Sztajn�, Amy J. Hackenberg, Dorothy Y. White, Martha Allexsaht-Snider

Department of Mathematics and Science Education, The University of Georgia, 105 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA, 30602-7124, USA

Abstract

Despite increased attention in professional development to building communities of teachers, few studies have

investigated the development of trust in these communities. This paper presents issues related to trust in a professional

development project at an elementary school. The project aimed for school-based elementary teachers and university-based

mathematics educators to work together to improve mathematics instruction at the school by developing a mathematics

education community of learners, where learners were conceived of as both the teachers and the mathematics educators.

This paper addresses the following question: What factors in the project supported the development of trust among

mathematics educators and teachers as the community was formed? More specifically, the paper is about one aspect of

trust, namely, building school-based elementary teachers’ trust in the university-based mathematics educators. We point to

three factors that helped the development of trust and we use care theory to further understand and discuss these factors in

the context of in-service teacher education initiatives.

r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Teacher community; Community of learning; Trust; Care theory; Mathematics professional development

1. Introduction

Advances in educational research areas such ascognition, school reform, and teacher change haveraised important issues for professional developmentinitiatives with teachers. Two of these issues are therole of communities in teachers’ learning processesand the concept of schools as cultures. On one hand,research on situated cognition and communities oflearners (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991) has pointed to

ee front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

te.2006.04.023

ing author. Tel.: +1 706 542 4541;

4551.

ess: [email protected] (P. Sztajn).

the significance of social interactions and commu-nication in learning processes. On the other hand,research on schools and reform (e.g., Fullan, 1990)has highlighted the importance of understandingschools as organizations, therefore consideringschools, and not individual teachers, as the funda-mental unit of change in reform initiatives. These tworesearch-based developments, when considered to-gether, suggest the value of in-service teacher educa-tion initiatives that are situated within communities ofteachers-as-learners in schools. We refer to suchcommunities as teachers’ learning communities.

Research on professional development has alsopointed to the centrality of both teachers’ learning

.

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.04.023

mailto:[email protected]

ARTICLE IN PRESS

1The authors of this paper are the two project directors, the

graduate assistant and the external project evaluator. When it is

important to identify roles in our report, we use the terms project

directors, graduate assistant, and project evaluator, or the term

‘‘university-based mathematics educators’’ or just ‘‘mathematics

educators’’ to refer to the two directors and the graduate assistant

who worked more often at the school. In other instances, we use a

collective ‘‘we’’ to represent the authors’ agreement on issues and

concerns raised in the paper.

P. Sztajn et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 970–984 971

communities and school-wide efforts in successfulteacher education initiatives. Wilson and Berne(1999) examined the research literature on contem-porary professional development and analyzedsuccessful initiatives. They identified three themesthat cut across different effective projects. Two ofthese themes relate to teachers’ learning in commu-nities. First, ‘‘all of the projects involved commu-nities of learners that are redefining teachingpractice’’ (p. 194). And second, the projectsprivileged ‘‘teachers’ interactions with one another’’(p. 195). Hawley and Valli (1999) defined research-based essentials for professional development andanalyzed their implications for new professionaldevelopment initiatives. One of the principles intheir model for professional development is con-ducting professional development initiatives that areschool-based and integral to school operations.Together, these reviews of research on professionaldevelopment reinforce the value of initiatives thatare situated within learning communities in schools.

Regardless of the growing indication that workwithin communities is important for teachers’professional development, researchers are onlybeginning to understand the ways in which teachersparticipate in these communities and how commu-nities are built (Grossman, Wineburg, & Wool-worth, 2001; Gutierrez, 2000; Little, 2002; Palinscar,Magnusson, Marano, Ford, & Brown, 1998).Wilson and Berne (1999) noted that each successfulprofessional development project they analyzedstruggled with how to build community, and inparticular, with how to build trust among partici-pants in these communities. We contend that,despite emerging discussions in the professionaldevelopment research literature about teachers andcommunities, how trust among participants is builtas communities develop has not been widelyinvestigated. Trust seems to be taken for grantedin many reports about professional developmentprojects that work with teachers in learning com-munities.

This paper presents issues related to developingtrust in a professional development initiative.Project SIPS (Support and Ideas for Planning andSharing in mathematics education) aimed forschool-based elementary teachers and university-based mathematics educators to work together toimprove mathematics instruction at Adams Ele-mentary School (a pseudonym) by building amathematics education community of learners atthe school. This community included the entire

school staff and university-based mathematicseducators (two faculty members and one graduateassistant).1 The project underscored the importanceof working with a school as a unit of change inmathematics education. Trust—initially defined as‘‘assured reliance on the character, ability, strength,or truth of someone or something; one in whichconfidence is placed,’’ according to the Webster’sNinth New Collegiate Dictionary—was a funda-mental aspect of the project.

This article is about the first year of Project SIPSand addresses the following question: What factorsin Project SIPS supported the development of trustamong university-based mathematics educators andschool-based elementary teachers as the communitywas formed? More specifically, in this article wefocus on one aspect of trust, namely buildingteachers’ trust in the mathematics educators. Forthe development of SIPS as a teacher educationproject, trust needed to be in place; for thedevelopment of SIPS as a research project, trustneeded to be investigated so we could betterunderstand how the community evolved.

We use Nodding’s care theory (1984, 2001, 2002)as a theoretical tool to help us understand thedevelopment of trust. It is our view that care theoryand the concept of caring relations support theanalysis of how trust develops among people whoare involved in a relationship (such as participatingin a professional development initiative). AlthoughNoddings uses teacher–student relationships todiscuss caring relations in education, we use caringrelations to conceptualize the trust-building processthat occurred during the first year of Project SIPSand, more generally, to study professional develop-ment endeavors that focus on developing commu-nities.

We begin the paper with a brief review of theliterature on trust and care theory as they relate tocommunities of teachers. Next, we introduce ProjectSIPS and its organization, describing projectactivities during its first year. We discuss the project

ARTICLE IN PRESSP. Sztajn et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 970–984972

research and support our findings with data fromgroup interviews conducted with participatingteachers at the end of the first year of Project SIPS.We consider three factors that, from the teachers’perspectives, contributed to the development oftrust among teachers and university-based mathe-matics educators, and we use care theory to discussthe process of building trust.

2. Trust and care

2.1. The importance of trust in schools and learning

communities

Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth (2001)cautioned that a community is not a ‘‘group ofpeople sitting in a room for a meeting’’ (p. 943). Fora group of teachers to emerge as a community, ‘‘thewell-being of students must be central’’ (p. 951). Inschool-based professional development initiatives,such a group operates at the local level, ‘‘where face-to-face interactions, dialogue, and trust are neces-sary for building cohesion’’ (p. 946). In thesecommunities, participants engage together in deci-sion-making processes and share certain practicesthat define and nurture the community. Grossmanet al. cautioned that for teachers to continue togrow professionally in such communities they needto be learners, ‘‘continuing [their] intellectual devel-opment in the subject matters of the schoolcurriculum’’ (p. 951). Therefore, in Project SIPS,teachers were engaged in what we called a mathe-matics education community, that is, a communitywhere all members continued to learn and developtheir knowledge of mathematics and mathematicsteaching, while attending to students’ mathematicallearning and knowledge. This community was apartnership between school-based and university-based educators. Building such a community isneither a simple nor a short-term process.

Building community across institutions can beparticularly challenging. For example, when de-scribing the development of a partnership betweenuniversity and schools, Jones, Yonezawa, Balles-teros, and Mehan (2002) stated: ‘‘the first two years

in the formation of our collaborative approach topartnerships primarily involved establishing trustingrelationships with our colleagues in partnershipschools’’ (p. 6, emphasis added). The authorscontinued to explain that the university educatorshad to ‘‘convince’’ local educators of their commit-ment. Jones and colleagues concluded that ‘‘estab-

lishing trusting and supportive relationships withschools is vital for the success of any school–-university partnership’’ (p. 7). Their work indicatedthat trust among school-based and university-basededucators is a complex issue to tackle.

Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (1998) claimed thattrust is increasingly seen as a ‘‘vital element of well-functioning organizations’’ (p. 334). They examinedvarious definitions of trust within organizations,both from a behavioral and an attitudinal perspec-tive. Across all the definitions, the concept ofvulnerability was the one common dimensionfound. ‘‘Where there is no vulnerability, there isno need for trust’’ (p. 337), the authors noted. Theyconsidered a multidimensional definition of trust as‘‘one party’s willingness to be vulnerable to anotherparty based on the belief that the latter party is: (a)competent; (b) reliable; (c) open; and (d) concerned’’(Mishra, as cited in Tschannen-Moran & Hoy,1998, p. 337).

Bryk and Schneider (2003) studied trust inschools through case studies and longitudinalstatistical analyses of data from more than 400elementary schools. They stated that when differentpeople work together, the sense of vulnerability isdue to the dependence that exists among people forthe successful completion of the work. ‘‘Deliberateaction taken by any party to reduce this sense ofvulnerability in others—to make them feel safe andsecure—builds trust across the community’’ (p. 41).Bryk and Schneider mentioned four aspects ofcollective work that are required for the develop-ment of trust: (a) respectful exchanges with peoplegenuinely listening to each other; (b) personalregard and willingness to extend oneself beyondformal requirements; (c) competence in core roleresponsibility; and (d) an ethical commitment to theeducation and welfare of children.

Tschannen-Moran (2001) found a link betweenlevel of collaboration in a school and level of trustwithin that school. Teachers’ collaboration with andtrust in the principal, their colleagues, and parentsare positively correlated. Brewster and Railsback(2003) highlighted that while trust alone does notguarantee that a school is successful, schools withlittle or no trust have almost no chance of beingsuccessful.

In our work, we extend the discussion of trustwithin schools as organizations to the context ofteachers’ learning communities. We believe thatissues of vulnerability are particularly prominent inthe work of building teachers’ learning communities

ARTICLE IN PRESSP. Sztajn et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 970–984 973

because to engage in learning a teacher needs toadmit, as a professional, that further knowledge isneeded. Teachers who are learning and changingtheir practices are in a potentially delicate positionbecause they are vulnerable to their peers’ opinions,the professional developers’ perceptions, and theiradministrators’ expectations. Working in commu-nities of learners, teachers need to rely on otherswithin the community to overcome their vulner-ability. Thus we contend that trust is a vital elementof well-functioning teachers’ learning communitiesand that communities without trust cannot besuccessful. Furthermore, understanding how to helpteachers feel less vulnerable and how to developtrust is an important issue for mathematics teachereducators who work with teachers in learningcommunities.

In communities that involve university-based andschool-based educators, the connection betweencollaboration and trust found in other contextsimplies that teachers’ collaboration with university-based educators is linked to teachers’ trust in theeducators, and if teachers do not trust the educa-tors, the community has little chance of forming.Thus, in projects like SIPS, developing trust is at thecore of the projects’ success. Notions of reliance(used in the Webster’s definition of trust) andvulnerability (considered by Tschannen-Moran &Hoy, 1998) are important for developing teachers’trust in the mathematics educators.

Bryk and Schneider (2003) explained that when arelationship begins, the parties involved may rely onthe general reputation of the other or on common-alities of race, gender, age, religion, etc., to assesstrustworthiness. Over time, however, willingness totrust is based on the perceptions each party holds ofone another’s intentions, competence, and integrity.Lewicki and Bunker (1996) identified three levels ofincreasing trust that emerge at different stages in arelationship: provisional, knowledge-based, andidentity-based. The provisional level rests on theassumption that both parties want to maintain arelationship; the knowledge-based level emergeswhen parties get to know one another and feelable to predict how they will behave in a givensituation; and the identity-based level exists whenboth parties empathize with the others’ desires.Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (1998) claimed that atthe last level, ‘‘each of the parties understandsand appreciates the other’s desires to such an extentthat each can effectively act in the other’s stead’’(p. 337).

2.2. Connections between trust and care

The idea of being able to appreciate anotherperson’s wishes and act accordingly is at the centerof Noddings’ (1984, 2001, 2002) care theory. Caringis often used to designate a quality of a person.Noddings, however, uses it to characterize a relationbetween people. This relation requires the participa-tion of a carer and a cared-for. In caring relations, acarer interacts with another person (cared-for) insuch a way that the person’s needs are satisfied.Caring relations, however, are not solely determinedby the actions of the carer. Without the cared-for’sresponse or reception of the care, the caring relationis not completed. In this sense caring relations arereciprocal, although in any given situation thosewho are primarily carers and those who areprimarily cared-fors act differently in enactingcaring relations.

Initiating and maintaining care involves a carer intwo central ways: the carer practices engrossmentand motivational displacement (Noddings, 1984,2002). Engrossment means listening and closelyattending to the cared-for’s needs, which in turnrequires decentering from the carer’s own immedi-ate concerns. In this situation, decentering does notimply forgetting the carer’s concerns but settingthem temporarily to the side. For example, during aprofessional development session, a teacher-educa-tor-as-carer might become engrossed with teachers’concerns about getting all their students to memor-ize basic mathematics facts. Although the teacher-educator might have her own concerns about anemphasis on memorization or drill-and-practice tothe exclusion of problem solving and strategicreasoning, the teacher-educator would set theseconcerns aside in order to listen to and understandteachers’ rationales, desires, and practices related tostudents learning basic facts.

This engrossment is a prelude to motivationaldisplacement, in which the carer marshals herenergy in service of the cared-for’s goals or projects,as if they were the carer’s own. However, motiva-tional displacement does not preclude influencingthose goals or projects in some way. For example,out of her engrossment with the teachers, theteacher-educator-as-carer might suggest activitiesthat would allow teachers to work toward theirdesire to have all students memorize basic mathe-matics facts, while simultaneously expanding tea-chers’ awareness of the mathematics inherent inbasic facts (i.e., commutativity, distributivity, etc.),


what knowing them signifies, and what practicesmight orchestrate student learning of them. In thisway, the teacher educator may build on the waysteachers seem to be thinking while working withthem to generate new ways to think. The teacher-educator-as-carer can then intentionally open oppor-tunities for the teachers-as-cared-fors to develop newlevels of understanding, challenging teachers’ as-sumptions about mathematics teaching and learning.

Receiving care can involve the cared-for in severalways; perhaps the most valuable action is the cared-for’s continuing engagement in her or his (alwayschanging) goals and projects. According to Nod-dings (2002), this kind of response is what the carermost needs to continue caring. Often the carer’sengrossment and motivational displacement leads tothe cared-for feeling attended to and believing thather work and ideas are valued in some way. Feelingcared for, however, is not based solely on consis-tently feeling listened to or supported. Being caredfor involves developing competence—growing,learning—and thus might regularly involve somediscomfort. In this sense caring includes attention toboth affective and intellectual realms.

When the cared-for comes to believe that thecarer has the cared-for’s best interests in mind, he orshe is likely to engage in the carer’s suggestions andideas. Given that this kind of response allows thecarer to continue caring, one might say that thecared-for cares back for the carer by respondingwith such engagement. Thus, in a caring relation,while the carer experiences engrossment and moti-vational displacement, the cared-for displays en-gagement, both with the activities set by the carerand with the cared-for’s own projects and ideas. Forexample, in a professional development setting, auniversity-based educator-as-carer might ask tea-chers to design a lesson on counting (for a givengrade level) and then engage them in analyzing whatdifferent student activity in the lesson may indicateabout students’ conceptions of number. A teacher-as-cared-for might find analyzing students’ countingactivity in this way to be particularly interesting oruseful—perhaps something she or he had notthought about before. If the teacher wrote a seriesof lessons about counting and began to collectexamples of her students’ thinking and what she orhe was learning about them, the teacher would bereceiving the university educator’s care and caringback. In such cases, both the carer and the cared-forwould exhibit care for each other as they engaged ina reciprocal relation.

We contend that when carer and cared-foroperate within such a relationship, they developidentity-based trust; they rely on each other,diminishing their sense of vulnerability. In analyzingour work with the teachers in Project SIPS, weunderstood that in the process of building teachers’trust in the university-based mathematics educators,teachers and mathematics educators developedcaring relations, with the mathematics educatorsas carers and the teachers as cared-fors.

3. Method

In the following section we describe the organiza-tion of Project SIPS and the activities conductedduring its first year. We chose to examine the firstyear of the project because by the end of that year,teachers at Adams Elementary took a blind voteand decided to continue working to build andmaintain the community initiated through ProjectSIPS. Moreover, teachers invited the mathematicseducators into their classrooms to work moredirectly with them during the second year of SIPS.These two events served as evidence that, in its firstyear of implementation, SIPS had successfullyestablished trust between school-based and univer-sity-based educators. After describing the first yearof SIPS, we present the data sources and analysisthat comprised the research components of theproject.

Other measures of the success of Project SIPS canbe seen in the increase in the percentage of theschool’s students who met or exceeded grade-levelexpectations in a standardized, criterion-based,mandatory state test (45% in 2002, 61% in2003, 65% in 2004) and in students’ increasedparticipation during mathematics classes (Sztajin,Allexsaht-Snider, White, & Hackenberg, 2004).These changes, however, are not the focus of thispaper. Rather, in this research report we focus onone aspect of the project, namely building trust tosupport the development of a mathematics educa-tion community at the school.

3.1. Adams elementary

Project SIPS began in February 2001, supportedby an Eisenhower Higher Education Grant atAdams Elementary school. Adams is an urbanelementary school in the Southeast United States,where 90% of the children qualify for free orreduced lunch (and are considered children of high


poverty). In its school district, Adams has thehighest percentage of Latino children (29% in2000 and 39% in 2003), although the schoolpopulation is mostly African American (57% in2000 and 51% in 2003). The school enrolled about400 children in 2001–2002 (the number variedduring the year), organized into two pre-K, threekindergarten, four first-grade, three second-grade,two third-grade, two fourth-grade, and two fifth-grade classrooms.

Project SIPS involved 27 teachers at AdamsElementary School during its first year: the 18regular classroom teachers plus nine resourceteachers including Title I, Special Education, orEnglish for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)teachers. Eighteen of the teachers were White, sixwere African American and three were Latina.These 27 teachers attended at least 30 hours of SIPSmeetings over the year and received three staffdevelopment units for participation in the project.Other members of the school community such as theart, music, and physical education teachers; schoolstaff personnel; administrators; paraprofessionals;and student teachers also attended a few SIPSmeetings during the year.

An initial background questionnaire administeredto the teachers at the beginning of SIPS highlightedthe limited attention teachers at Adams had given tomathematics. Twenty-two teachers of the 27 tea-chers (82%) returned the background question-naire. Twenty of them responded that, in theprevious 5 years, they had not completed any in-service activity where the current research onchildren’s learning of mathematics was discussed.One teacher indicated that she had participated in a1-day workshop about mathematics teaching, andanother teacher had taken a graduate class inmathematics as part of her master’s program andparticipated in one mathematics-related in-serviceinitiative.

The university-based mathematics educators in-volved in Project SIPS had previously worked witha couple of teachers from the school and hadsupervised student teachers placed at Adams. Whenmathematics educators and teachers met to discussthe idea of a professional development project forthe whole school, provisional trust, at best, existedamong them. At that meeting, teachers asserted theywere interested in a professional developmentinitiative that was a sustained commitment over atime period of at least 1 year to help increase theirstudents’ performance in mathematics. SIPS was a

timely project for the school, and teachers wereinterested in participating.

3.2. First Year of SIPS

From the beginning of Project SIPS, a funda-mental assumption of the university-based mathe-matics educators was that teachers would try toimplement what they saw as the best possibleteaching. A second assumption was that, in orderto offer all children a mathematics education that isaligned with current societal demands, teachers atAdams Elementary needed to experience new ideasfor teaching mathematics. Teachers needed todeepen their content knowledge of the subject,examine their attitude towards mathematics, andexpand their pedagogical resources. Mathematicseducators also believed that teachers knew theirstudents and classrooms better than mathematicseducators did, and that both school-based anduniversity-based educators had important contribu-tions to bring to the development of a mathematicseducation community of learners at the school.Therefore, Project SIPS was designed to provideteachers with professional development activities toincrease their mathematical content and pedagogi-cal knowledge, while building a mathematicseducation community among the school staff andthe mathematics educators.

Mathematics educators began Project SIPS withtwo working definitions of community. One defini-tion was developed during a doctoral seminar onschool-based professional development. It read: ‘‘Aprofessional community of mathematics educatorsis a group focused on students’ mathematicallearning that collaborates in an atmosphere ofprofessional trust to achieve shared goals throughshared planning, deprivatization of practice, andreflective dialogue.’’ Deprivatization of practicereferred to teachers opening up their instructionalpractices to feedback and ideas from other commu-nity members as well as giving feedback to theirpeers. Deprivatization increases teachers’ commit-ment to ‘‘practicing their craft in public ways’’(Louis, Kruse, & Marks, 1996, p. 183). The seconddefinition of community was generated at AdamsElementary during one of the earliest SIPS meet-ings. Teachers defined a mathematics educationcommunity as ‘‘a group of people (students,teachers, and parents) supporting each other indiscovering number relationships by sharing re-sources, ideas, and activities.’’ For teachers, sharing


resources was a key element of this community.These two definitions set the tone for some of theactivities included in Project SIPS. The first high-lighted the importance mathematics educators gaveto issues of trust and deprivatization of practice asthe project started. The second pointed to theimportance teachers gave to support and resources.

Table 1 summarizes the main activities conductedduring the first year of the project. Table 2 presentsfour additional activities implemented in the firstyear of SIPS. Even though these activities had notoriginally been part of the project’s plan, theyturned out to be important for the trust buildingprocess.

The worksessions and the monthly mathematicsfaculty meetings formed the core of the project.SIPS worksessions took place at the school, duringschool hours. Teachers worked with the mathe-matics educators within four working groups: pre-Kand K; first and second; third and fourth; and fifthgrade. Each group met for a half-day activity everyother month. Substitute teachers were hired by theproject to allow for teacher participation. Thisworksession model was designed because teacherswere more willing to participate in professionaldevelopment activities during school hours andpreferred activities tailored to the specific mathe-matical needs of their students. Also, the mathe-matics educators wanted all teachers to participateand attend the meetings, and working outsideschool hours would not guarantee 100% participa-tion.

During the half-day worksessions, teachers wereintroduced to activities and ideas for teachingmathematics, explored their knowledge of andteaching strategies for the session’s mathematical

Table 1

Project SIPS year one main activities

Date Main activity

February 2001 Adams Elementary formed a M

facilitated communication betwe

April 2001 The MLT conducted a mathema

which they needed help.

May 2001 MLT members, school administ

consultant) identified topics to b

Throughout the school year Teachers participated in half-da

school hours every other month

Throughout the school year Teachers participated in monthl

May 2002 The MLT conducted a summati

June 2002 Teachers participated in a proje

topic, and planned lessons to implement in theirclassrooms. The worksessions addressed topicsselected by teachers at each grade level as criticalto the grade level. For example, second gradeteachers wanted help with subtraction and placevalue, whereas fourth and fifth grade teachersselected fractions and decimals as important topicsto be addressed by SIPS. For each session, themathematics educators prepared a packet of mate-rials on the topic under consideration. Thesepackets included local curriculum standards, ideasfor classroom activities, and articles for furtherreading. Part of each worksession followed aworkshop format where teachers explored mathe-matics activities proposed by the mathematicseducators (some of them from the packets),examined students’ knowledge using videotapes ofchildren solving problems, and discussed examplesof children’s work. Another part of the worksessionwas used for teachers to prepare classroom activitiestogether. Teachers were asked to think about howthey could adapt for their students the ideasdiscussed in the workshop part of the meeting.

Each month, one of the weekly school facultymeetings was a SIPS meeting—the monthly mathe-matics faculty meeting. These after-school meetingswere attended by the whole school staff and,whenever possible, by school administrators. SIPSmonthly mathematics faculty meetings were devotedto building and maintaining a mathematics educa-tion community across the school. During thesemeetings, teachers had the opportunity to sharewith their colleagues what they were doing inmathematics. Teachers presented activities plannedduring worksessions, shared how the activitieswere implemented, and discussed their students’

athematics Leadership Team (MLT) of classroom teachers who

en mathematics educators and teachers.

tics needs assessment in which teachers indicated content topics in

rators, mathematics educators, and a mathematician (project

e covered in staff development activities.

y, grade-specific professional development worksessions during

.

y mathematics faculty meetings.

ve project evaluation.

ct evaluation day.

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 2

Project SIPS additional activities

Date Additional activity

November 2001 In-service and pre-service teachers meeting—pre-service teachers came to the school to learn about

bi-lingual, mathematics-related resources.

January 2002 100th day of school—the whole school planned a day of mathematics activities.

April 2002 Math Night—teachers used SIPS time to plan this school event and university graduate and

undergraduate students helped conduct the activities.

Spring 2002 Graduate assistant support—teachers asked for further help, and the graduate assistant began to

spend 6 hours per week at the school, listening to teachers’ needs and helping them both in and

outside of their classrooms.

2Two of the interviews had to be conducted by the project

graduate assistant due to scheduling conflicts.

P. Sztajn et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 970–984 977

participation and reactions. Teachers also solvedmathematics problems during these meetings, work-ing together to increase their mathematical knowl-edge and to experience some of the ideas themathematics educators proposed for them to usein their classrooms. Finally, the monthly meetingswere also used for ‘‘business purposes’’ andcollective decision-making, allowing the wholecommunity to plan together as the project unfolded.

3.3. Data sources

A plethora of data was collected during the firstyear of SIPS, including videotapes of all monthlyfaculty meetings; teachers’ written reflections;mathematics educators’ field notes; reports of themembers of the Mathematics Leadership Team(MLT) evaluation reports; the graduate assistant’slog of activities; and evaluation interviews.Although various sets of data corroborate theresults we report, this paper focuses on the interviewdata.

At the end of the project’s first year, an externalproject evaluator interviewed all teachers who hadparticipated in the project. The interviews wereconducted with focus groups of three or fourteachers, organized by grade level (seven groups),with the addition of some Title I, special education,and ESOL teachers. These semi-structured inter-views lasted approximately 45min and were audio-taped and transcribed (see Appendix A for theinterview protocol). They were designed to serve asa space for group discussion, encouraging ‘‘partici-pants to talk to one another, asking questions,exchanging anecdotes, and commenting on eachothers’ experiences and points of view’’ (Kitzinger &Barbour, 1999, p. 4). Mathematics educators askedthe project evaluator to conduct these interviews

because they wanted to ensure that teachers had theopportunity to speak openly about any concerns orrecommendations for the project.2 The projectevaluator gave the mathematics educators tran-scripts of all interviews and an evaluation report.

3.4. Data analysis

SIPS, as a research project, had the overall goal ofunderstanding ‘‘the complex world of lived experi-ence from the point of view of those who lived it’’(Schwandt, 1994, p, 118). Understanding this worldmeans interpreting it, and in its research approach,SIPS sought to ‘‘elucidate the process of meaningconstruction and clarify what and how meanings areembodied in the language and actions of socialactors’’ (p. 118). From this perspective, it wasour goal to consider teachers’ perceptions about thedevelopment of a mathematics education commu-nity of learners through Project SIPS, focusing onfactors that, for the teachers, were importantfor building trust. That is, we aimed to identifyfactors that the teachers mentioned as decreasingtheir vulnerability, increasing their reliance oncommunity members, enhancing their engagementwith project activities, and fostering collaborationwith the university-based mathematics teachereducators.

Some of the factors and characteristics thatfollow, highlighted by the teachers as importantfor building trust, are aspects of SIPS that werepurposefully included in the project with the goal ofbuilding a community by making teachers feelwelcome. Some of them derived from our initialassumptions and from our knowledge about


teachers’ lives and teacher learning; others wereincluded in the project with the goal of fulfilling theneeds teachers voiced as the project evolved.However, from the set of assumptions and activitiesthat we, the mathematics educators, used to buildcommunity, we did not know which ones teachers

would perceive as important to them in their processof developing trust.

This report uses participants’ language as its maindata source, analyzing teachers’ discussions duringthe focus groups interviews. Through contentanalysis of the interview transcripts, we searchedfor patterns in the teachers’ conversations aboutSIPS and for recurring words and themes thatexpressed teachers’ trust in the mathematics educa-tors and in the project. Although the word trust wasnever used in any of the interviews, we searched forevidence that teachers saw themselves as relying onthe mathematics educators’ character, ability, andknowledge. We also searched for factors that, fromthe teachers’ perspective, helped them developconfidence and engagement with the project, itsleaders, the activities carried out, and the commu-nity they were developing. We looked for factorsthat made teachers feel valued, less vulnerable, andmore willing to collaborate with mathematicseducators in activities carried out within thecommunity.

As we examined the interviews, we coded allinstances in which teachers indicated trust in theproject, using the initial emerging categories ofmathematics educators’ actions and the project’scharacteristics (which were later refined, as pre-sented in the next section). We also examined thetranscripts in search of indicators that might beinterpreted as examples of teachers’ lack of con-fidence in the leadership, goals, or activitiesassociated with Project SIPS. After completing thisinitial coding, we looked within interviews andbetween the seven interviews to bring up issuesthat were important to most teachers, trying torepresent an overall view of the participants. Weused triangulation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) acrossseveral sets of data (e.g., researchers’ fieldnotes andrecords from monthly faculty meetings) to corro-borate our findings from the interviews. The projectevaluator’s report was used to contrast andaugment the claims about teachers’ perceptions,so the project evaluator played an important rolein enhancing the trustworthiness of the findingsby continuously challenging assertions from theanalysis.

4. Findings: factors that support building trust

Three main aspects of Project SIPS emerged fromthe interviews with teachers as factors that helpedbuild trust during the development of a mathe-matics education community. We labeled thesefactors as: (a) the professionalism of the mathe-matics educators; (b) the organization of theproject; and (c) the establishment of school-uni-versity relations. These factors are organized intospecific characteristics that the teachers mentionedas important to them and to their participation inthe community. In our discussion we use quotesfrom the teachers as evidence of the importance ofthe factors and characteristics for teachers’ devel-opment of trust in the mathematics educators and inProject SIPS.

4.1. Professionalism of the mathematics educators

In evaluating SIPS, all interviewed groups com-mented on aspects of what the mathematicseducators did and said that helped teachers feelvalued and comfortable within the project. Teachershighlighted the availability of the mathematicseducators as well as their attitudes toward theteachers and the school. As one teacher explained,‘‘I think the instructors’ attitude had a lot to do asto how willing we were to do anything.’’

Teachers talked about the flexibility of themathematics educators, and the respect the mathe-matics educators had for teachers’ knowledge,experiences, and questions. Teachers also commen-ted about the mathematics educators’ knowledge ofclassrooms and school realities. Combined, welabeled these characteristics the professionalism of

the mathematics educators. This professionalismfacilitated teachers’ integration in the community,their communication with the mathematics educa-tors, and their confidence that the mathematicseducators had something to contribute to thecommunity and to teachers’ professional growth.

Flexibility. During the first year of SIPS, meetingsgot canceled, rescheduled, and changed due to otherschool demands on teachers. Mathematics educa-tors were repeatedly asked to revise their plans or tocome back another day.

[The mathematics educators] were here everysingle time. And sometimes at the last minute,they’d be here, set up, ready to go, and thatmeeting would be canceled on them. So, that


happened a couple of times, and that’s kind offrustrating, although they didn’t seem to befrustrated by it. They were very flexible.

Teachers talked about the mathematics educatorsbeing ‘‘generous with their time,’’ and doing ‘‘every-thing in their power to work with us.’’ From theteachers’ perspective, the mathematics educatorsunderstood the constraints of school life.

For the teachers, flexibility referred not only totime management but also to the content and focusof the meetings. Teachers felt mathematics educa-tors were willing to adjust meeting agendas todevote time to immediate issues teachers wanted todiscuss. SIPS meetings, one teacher explained,‘‘were flexible so that the objective could becentrally focused as needed.’’ However, teachersalso felt the mathematics educators had a plan andthey would bring meetings back to the topic underconsideration. So teachers talked about the mathe-matics educators being ‘‘flexible but with a pur-pose.’’ One teacher explained:

The fact that they were organized, you know,some things I don’t like to be organized to thetee, but you know me, I really like organizationand it bothers me that I think that people are justplanning as they go. And they [the mathematicseducators] seemed to be very organized. Veryflexible, but they’d still go back to the purpose.

Respect for teachers’ knowledge and experience.

Teachers saw mathematics educators’ flexibility asan indication that they valued teachers’ knowledge,experiences, and time. Mathematics educatorsmodeled discussions in which everybody was heardand different opinions (or solutions to mathematicalproblems) were valued. Teachers were asked toshare their knowledge and they took this request asan indication that their ideas were respected. As oneteacher put it, ‘‘they would elicit from staff[teachers] too. Like they would say, ‘Well, this iswhat I did, what did you do?’ and then get the staffto kind of take over. So they did good process.’’Teachers also felt that, because the mathematicseducators got to know them and their experiences,time was not wasted. ‘‘They didn’t waste your timegoing over the basics, to sit there and listen to alecture that you already knew about.’’ Mostimportant, from the teachers’ perspectives, themathematics educators were willing to work onissues that the teachers deemed important, not onlyvaluing their knowledge of their students, curricu-

lum, and school, but also making project activitiesmore interesting and pertinent to them. A teacherstated,

I think that is what made it so successful, becausethey did not come in and [say] ‘‘we are going tohelp you with these.’’ They came in and said,‘‘What do you need help with?’’ And I mean, thatmade a difference, like [my colleague] said, withthose coming in, how we approached it and howsuccessful the program was.

The establishment of a relationship betweenuniversity-based and school-based educators whereboth sides were viewed as knowledgeable andcontributors to the learning process helped opencommunication between all SIPS educators. Tea-chers and mathematics educators exchanged manye-mails and phone calls. In the interviews, teachersfrom all grades talked about being able to askquestions of the mathematics educators and feelingthat their questions were honored. Teachers alsocommented on how available the mathematicseducators were to help them in any way theywanted, which increased teachers’ impression thatthe mathematics educators respected them. Tea-chers mentioned that the mathematics educatorswere ‘‘very open to us,’’ ‘‘great about responding ifyou call or e-mail them,’’ and teachers ‘‘felt free’’ toask questions and bring their issues to the table.

Knowledge about classroom and school realities.

‘‘You know when they know their stuff when theycan behave in that open-ended way,’’ one teachersaid when discussing how knowledgeable shethought mathematics educators were about mathe-matics in schools and classrooms. Teachers expectedmathematics educators to know mathematics in thecontext of schools and ‘‘real’’ mathematics class-rooms. In general, teachers’ notions that mathe-matics educators ‘‘knew something’’ were related tothe classroom activities and strategies suggested inthe workshops, which teachers saw as ‘‘working’’ intheir classrooms. Many teachers also commented onnoticing the mathematics educators’ awareness ofteachers’ routines and school life. ‘‘You get a sensethat they have worked with children extensively andbeen in the classroom themselves,’’ one teacher said.This comment was echoed in different interviews.

Like sometimes when I was in college, professorswould teach you things that sound really cute butin all reality, they don’t apply to the realclassroom. And I think the things they came in,


that kind of conveyed that, to me, was like, theywere aware of that. Just because it is cute it’s notgoing to work. And they were, they had a lot ofthings that, everything they brought to us prettymuch worked.

Another teacher summarized the groups’ ideas:

I just think all the university people involvedwere really aware of the realities of classroomexperience, which I think is helpful. They weremuch more aware of what time constraints theremight be and also did a good job of trying tomake things that they brought to us be useful.And I appreciated that.

4.2. The organization of the project

Besides characteristics of the mathematics educa-tors as professionals, project characteristics relatedto the organization of SIPS were highly valued bythe teachers. Two of these characteristics—provid-ing teachers with time and resources and givingteachers practical ideas to take to their classroom—helped teachers appreciate the project, furtherdeveloping the trust they placed in SIPS initiatives.

Provided teachers with time and resources. Timeand resources are two commodities Adams teachershighly valued. As part of SIPS, teachers had accessto time and resources. In particular, teachers hadtime to plan activities together, to share what theywere doing, and to talk about teaching childrenmathematics.

In our small groups, when it was just kindergar-ten, first, and second, there were some neat thingsthat other teachers were doing that I had neverseen before. And I’ve taught for 20 years, youknow, it was like, that’s, that’s I think the biggestthing in teaching, that teachers need to share.And [SIPS] gave us that time to sit down, andyou know, say ‘‘Now, what are you doing in yourclass?’’

Teachers appreciated ‘‘having just time to think,’’and ‘‘time to work with and get to know a newteacher.’’ Sharing times during worksessions andfaculty meetings were important to teachers becausethey could focus on mathematics during these SIPSactivities without distraction from the many otherdemands schools place on teachers’ time. Teacherscommented that SIPS ‘‘gave us time that we don’tnormally have during the day to really plan with

each other and then it set aside time just for math,where we might not have that time.’’

Working together through SIPS, mathematicseducators and school administrators started amathematics resource center in the school’s mediacenter. Mathematics resources were bought, givingteachers access to new teaching materials and ideas.In particular, the school purchased children’sliterature books that could be used in mathematicslessons, and the mathematics educators wrote asmall grant to buy bi-lingual big books (in Englishand Spanish) to be used for mathematics teaching.Together with time, these resources represented animportant asset of the project. They made SIPSmeaningful to teachers’ lives and helped teachersappreciate the project. One teacher’s commentsummarizes these ideas.

They worked with more materials. So I’vechecked [them] out, used [them]. And I hadnever really thought that much about, you know,you kind of get, get going on your own thing andforget about what’s out there. So I feel like itwas a pretty good thing. Because I saw a wholelot of new things that I went and instantlychecked out.

Giving teachers practical ideas to take to their

classroom. Useful classroom ideas were very im-portant to SIPS teachers. In relation to developingtrust, these ideas helped not only the developmentof teachers’ trust in the mathematics educators andtheir knowledge, but also the development of trustin the way the project was organized. Teachersperceived SIPS ideas for the classroom as an asset tothe project because ‘‘they worked,’’ ‘‘childrenenjoyed [them],’’ and ‘‘children participated.’’ Evenif concepts such as what ‘‘works’’ in the classroomhad at times different meanings for school-basedteachers and for university-based mathematicseducators, from the teachers’ perspective, work-ability, as well as student enjoyment and participa-tion, were important aspects of the ideas SIPSgenerated.

Teachers also enjoyed the packets mathematicseducators prepared for the SIPS worksessions.These materials were perceived as an importantpart of the worksessions, something teachers couldtake with them. All groups talked about thesepackets during the interviews, and the selectedquote below summarizes how much teachers valuedthe packets.


[I] really liked them. The packets they puttogether for us, for the day session. [They] relatedto QCCs,3 a lot of the activities that we went overand discussed were in there. There were researchand articles to kind of back up what we hadtalked about that day, and they made us thinkand carry [it] a little further. A lot of thematerials that you would need in order to makesome of the things that we talked about, they putthe copies in there so that we could learn thosethings and re-create those things with thestudents.

4.3. Establishment of school-university relations

The 100th day of school, the math night, the workteachers did with pre-service elementary teachers(undergraduate students at the university), and theon-site work of the graduate assistant were not partof the initial plans for SIPS. They were initiated bythe teachers and negotiated as the project unfolded.They were highly valued by the teachers as SIPSactivities. All teachers talked about these events inthe first-year evaluation interviews and consideredthem important parts of building the project’smathematics education community. For the tea-chers, these events helped establish a relationbetween the school and the university. This relationintegrated school and university activities, eitherbecause the mathematics educators participated insomething that was originally organized by theschool, because university students worked directlywith the school teachers and children, or becauseuniversity-based mathematics educators were will-ing to be at the school to help teachers.

For the teachers, the integration of these twodifferent spheres of action (school and university)was important. Teachers felt that they learned fromtheir work with the undergraduate and the graduateuniversity students and vice versa. Teachers also feltthat the participation of the mathematics educatorsin the Math Night made it really a communityevent. Teachers appreciated working together tomake the 100th day of school a big mathematics dayfor all the children. Finally, teachers who tookadvantage of the support available to them throughthe presence of the graduate assistant at the schoolsaw that as a valuable resource. The followingquotes represent comments made about each ofthese events.

3The state’s Quality Core Curriculum.

I think, you know, when we planned the activitiesfor the 100th day of school, and when [we]planned some of the activities for the math night,there was a more community kind of sharing.

It was wonderful when they had some of theirstudents come out and teach [chorus of agree-ment] small lessons to our students, and thechildren loved it, and it gave the students at theuniversity good experience to be able to sit downand feel what it was really like when you’ve gotliving children in front of you.

Well I specifically just arranged with [thegraduate assistant] for her to come in and workwith four little boys in my classroom who werejust struggling. [y] And she’s had some inter-esting thoughts, she was talking about countingbackwards, and so I’ve done a lot more countingbackwards in my classroom with my children toassist them in kind of solidifying the idea ofnumerals.

5. Discussion

Overall, the teachers reported that the wayProject SIPS was carried out was important to itseffectiveness in developing trust and building amathematics education community of learners with-in the school. Teachers’ comments led us toconclude that certain aspects of the project madeteachers feel less vulnerable and therefore morewilling to collaborate and participate in activitieswithin the community. We claim that throughflexibility, respect for teachers’ knowledge andexperience, knowledge about classroom and schoolrealities, provision of time and resources, sugges-tions of practical ideas to take to the classrooms,and integration of school and university contexts,Project SIPS created an atmosphere that madeteachers feel safe and secure, allowing trust todevelop within the SIPS community.

The characteristics of SIPS that teachers high-lighted in the focus groups interviews are importanttrust-building aspects for professional developmentinitiatives. They allow trust among members of thecommunity to go from provisional to identity-based, from being based on the reputation ofteachers and mathematics educators to being basedon an understanding and appreciation of eachother’s interests and needs.

Working to fulfill teachers’ needs while attendingto our assumptions and beliefs brought up many


dilemmas for us. Wilson and Berne (1999) writeabout the challenge in ‘‘bridging the chasm betweenwhat one’s clients—the teachers—want and expectand one’s own goal,’’ a dilemma Richardson (1992)called the ‘‘agenda-setting dilemma.’’ For example,SIPS was built around the premises that offeringteachers resources was important for the commu-nity to develop and for mathematics instruction tochange at Adams Elementary. This was stated inteachers’ definition of community and proved to beimportant for the teachers as the communityunfolded. However, we soon learned that providingresources to teacher did not guarantee that teacherswould use them as we had envisioned. So, on onehand, in order to become a community, we had tolearn to accept teachers’ use of resources. On theother hand, in order to also respect the project goalof improving mathematics instruction, we had toquestion teachers’ use of these resources. Payingattention to how teachers were using their resourcesoffered opportunities to challenge some of theteachers’ assumptions about learning and teachingmathematics.

5.1. Using care theory to conceptualize trust building

factors

During SIPS, mathematics educators acted pri-marily as carers. From the very beginning of theproject, they demonstrated engrossment in theteachers’ needs and in teachers’ activities in theschool by meeting with and listening to the teachers.SIPS was based on teachers’ interests, and teachershad a central role in determining how the projectran and how the community developed. By respect-ing teachers’ knowledge and by taking classroomsand school realities into account, mathematicseducators practiced decentering. They exhibitedmotivational displacement when they took theteachers’ ideas as a basis for activities duringworksessions, when they procured materials andsupplies requested by teachers, and when they actedflexibly by adapting to teachers’ schedules and needsthroughout the year. In integrating university- andschool-based activities by, for example, using partsof SIPS worksessions to plan for math night andcreating an on-site position for the graduateassistant, mathematics educators-as-carers demon-strated to teachers-as-cared-fors that their experi-ences were connected.

The teachers at the school were primarily cared-for in that they received the mathematics educators’

care and responded with engagement and enthu-siasm—and occasional groaning, for example, overworking hard on mathematics problems duringfaculty meetings. Teachers’ evaluation interviewsindicated that they felt listened to and perceived thatthe work of SIPS was based on teachers’ needs.They also indicated that mathematics educatorswere bringing in new and different ideas to improvemathematics instruction at the school. When tryingnew classroom ideas that ‘‘worked,’’ teachers feltcompetent; they believed they were learning. Be-cause teachers came to believe that the mathematicseducators had their interests in mind, they re-sponded by supporting the project, by demonstrat-ing interest in the ideas mathematics educators werebringing to the community, by trying activities, andby showing motivation in teaching mathematics.The teachers cared back for the mathematicseducators in a way that allowed the relations (andthe project) to continue.

In practicing motivational displacement, mathe-matics educators also experienced discomfort. Be-cause mathematics educators cared, they had tolearn to participate in a mathematics educationcommunity in which change was not necessarilyalways the norm. For teachers to feel heard andrespected, the mathematics educators aligned theirwork with teachers’ goals. For example, entireworksessions of Project SIPS were used to discussbasic facts and standard algorithms for the basicoperations, topics deemed fundamental by theteachers. Although the mathematics educatorsagreed that these topics were important, theyconsidered a focus on other topics, such as placevalue, to be a higher priority. In the long run,aligning the work of the mathematics educatorswith the teachers’ goals (not necessarily the mathe-matics educators’ goals or agenda) proved valuablebecause, as teachers indicated, it allowed teachers tonotice that mathematics educators had teachers’interests in mind, supporting the development oftrust. In the short run, however, letting go of theirgoals was not always an easy task for the mathe-matics educators. Although they believed it impor-tant to let go of their own ideas at certain times, itwas hard to judge when to do so and when toexpress their points of view.

When letting go of their goals on certain occasions,the mathematics educators did not abandon theirideas. For example, mathematics educators-as-carerschallenged teachers-as-cared-fors to solve mathe-matics problems during faculty meetings that were


often a source of both discomfort and excitement forthe teachers. By trying to notice and balance teachers’discomfort and excitement, mathematics educatorsworked toward the competence-increasing aspects ofenacting care.

As mathematics educators engaged in caringrelations, they had to work on their listening skills,paying attention to what teachers had to say, towhere teachers were in their professional lives, andto how teachers wanted to work together. Mathe-matics educators learned to listen to teachers as theyshared classroom ideas that were not aligned withcurrent standards for teaching mathematics, stilloffering support and resources. Mathematics edu-cators learned to try to push teachers forward intheir thinking about children’s mathematical knowl-edge without going so far that teachers woulddisregard what was being said. In summary,mathematics educators were faced with manydilemmas and had to face the challenge of learningwhen to push and when to let go, when to expresstheir ideas and when to listen quietly, when to beactive as reform-agents and when to step back asstatus-quo observers.

6. Concluding remarks

In its first year, Project SIPS worked to develop amathematics education community at Adams Ele-mentary School and to build trust among commu-nity members—particularly among school-basedteachers and university-based mathematics educa-tors. From the teachers’ point of view, threecharacteristics of the project helped in the trustbuilding process: the professionalism of the mathe-matics educators, the organization of the project,and the establishment of school-university relations.In particular, teachers appreciated the flexibility,values, and knowledge of the mathematics educa-tors; the resources and ideas the project provided;and the integration between school and universitycontexts.

Highlighting the aspects of SIPS that built trust inthe evolving community is an important result ofthe project. These aspects can be taken intoconsideration in other professional developmentinitiatives that aim at working with teachers’learning communities in schools. The aspects ofSIPS discussed in this paper can help educators whoare interested in working with communities ofteachers and who understand the importance ofbeginning such work by building trust.

However, the implementation of some of theseaspects of SIPS in professional development in-itiatives can bring dilemmas for mathematicseducators as they organize their project to fulfillteachers’ needs. These dilemmas can be analyzedwithin the context of caring relations. In SIPS,teachers highlighted the motivational displacementof the mathematics educators as an important trust-building aspect of the project. As mathematicseducators worked towards fulfilling teachers’needs and understanding teachers’ interests, theywere flexible, respectful, knowledgeable, and re-sourceful; they brought the school and the uni-versity together. We believe that the development ofcaring relations sustained SIPS and is one way to‘‘track’’ the development of trust in school-basedcommunities.

In addition, we contend that caring relations canhave other significant implications for professionaldevelopment endeavors in mathematics education.First, as in SIPS, caring relations may facilitatediscussion about community development by offer-ing a language in which to frame key issues—suchas trust and reciprocity—in collaborative learningefforts. Second, practical and theoretical aspects ofcaring relations may ease mathematics educators’discomfort in setting their reform ideas to the side attimes during professional development projectsbecause the maintenance of caring relations requires

this kind of decentering. And third, explicitlyenacting caring relations in professional develop-ment projects between university-based mathe-matics educators and school-based teachers mayprovide an important model for how other groupsin the school might interact with regard to mathe-matics education.

As we continue to investigate school-basedprograms of professional development in mathe-matics education, there is a need to criticallyexamine the ways in which caring and trust arebuilt among participants as a foundation forcommunity development and community learning.Since community building has been identified as animportant element in successful professional devel-opment, it is clear that we need a more carefully-nuanced understanding of the ways communitiesare built and maintained. Thus the research withinthe SIPS mathematics professional developmentproject points to important aspects of trust andcaring relations to be further investigated in under-standing the development of teachers’ learningcommunities.


Appendix A. Interview questions for teachers at the

end of the first year of SIPS

1.
What did you see as the goals and purposes ofProject SIPS when it first began?
2.
Have you seen the goals and purposes of ProjectSIPS evolve during the year? If so, how have theyevolved?
3.
Originally, for the organizers of the project, a keygoal of Project SIPS was to build a school-basedcommunity for sharing and learning aboutmathematics education. Do you think that atyour school you have been developing that kindof community? Can you think of any examples ofhow this might be happening?
4.
Another goal of the organizers was for collabora-tion to emerge between university mathematicseducators and teachers at Adams Elementary.Have you seen that collaboration betweenteachers and mathematics educators happen?What aspects of the collaboration have you feltworked well? Which aspects might have beenmore challenging or problematic?
5.
What, if anything, do you feel that you havegained or learned through participation inProject SIPS?
6.
Have you taken anything from Project SIPS intoyour classrooms? If so, how did it work?
7.
Do you see any ways in which students’mathematics learning at Adams Elementary hasbeen influenced by teachers’ participation inProject SIPS? If so, what evidence do you haveof this influence on the students?
8.
Do you have any other reflections about yourexperience with Project SIPS or suggestions fornext year?
References

Brewster, C., & Railsback, J. (2003). Building trusting relation-

ships for school improvement. Implications for principals and

teachers. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational

Lab.

Bryk, A. S., & Schneider, B. (2003). Trust in schools: A core

resource for school reform. Educational Leadership, 60(6),

40–44.

Fullan, M. (1990). The new meaning of educational change. New

York: Teachers College Press.

Grossman, P., Wineburg, S., & Woolworth, S. (2001). Toward a

theory of teacher community. Teachers College Record, 103,

942–1012.

Gutierrez, R. (2000). Advancing Latina/o urban youth in

mathematics: The power of teacher community. Paper pre-

sented at the Research Presession to the Annual Meeting of

the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Chicago.

Hawley, W. D., & Valli, L. (1999). The essentials of effective

professional development. In L. Darling-Hammond, & G.

Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as a learning profession (pp. 127–150).

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Jones, M., Yonezawa, S., Ballesteros, E., & Mehan, H. (2002).

Shaping pathways to higher education. Educational Research-

er, 31(2), 3–11.

Kitzinger, J., & Barbour, R. S. (1999). The challenge and promise

of focus groups. In R. S. Barbour, & J. Kitzinger (Eds.),

Developing focus group research: Politics, theory and practice.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate

peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lewicki, R. J., & Bunker, B. B. (1996). Developing and

maintaining trust in work relationships. In R. M. Kramer,

& T. R. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of

theory and research (pp. 114–139). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry.

Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Little, J. W. (2002). Locating learning in teachers’ communities of

practice: Opening up problems of analysis in records of

everyday work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 917–946.

Louis, K. S., Kruse, S. D., & Marks, H. M. (1996). Schoolwide

professional community. In F. W. Newmann (Ed.), Authentic

achievement (pp. 179–203). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and

moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Noddings, N. (2001). The caring teacher. In V. Richardson (Ed.),

Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed., pp. 99–105).

Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Noddings, N. (2002). Educating moral people: A caring alternative

to character education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Palinscar, A. S., Magnusson, S. J., Marano, N., Ford, D., &

Brown, N. (1998). Designing a community of practice:

Principles and practices of the GIsML community. Teaching

and Teacher Education, 14, 5–19.

Richardson, V. (1992). The agenda-setting dilemma in a

constructivist staff development process. Teaching and Tea-

cher Education, 8, 287–300.

Schwandt, T. A. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches

to human inquiry. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),

Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 118–137). Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.

Sztajn, P., Allexsaht-Snider, M., White, D.Y., & Hackenberg,

A.J. (2004). School-based community of teachers and out-

comes for students. In M.J. Hoines, & A.B. Fuglestad (Eds.),

Proceeding of 28th Conference of the International Group

for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Vol. 4

(pp. 273–281). Bergen, Norway: Bergen University College.

Tschannen-Moran, M. (2001). Collaboration and the need for

trust. Journal of Educational Administration, 39, 308–331.

Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, W. (1998). Trust in schools: A

conceptual and empirical analysis. Journal of Educational

administration, 36, 334–352.

Wilson, S. M., & Berne, J. (1999). Teacher learning and the

acquisition of professional knowledge: An examination on

contemporary professional development. In A. Iran-Nedjad,

& P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Review of research in education, Vol.

24 (pp. 173–209). Washington, DC: American Educational

Research Association.

Documents

Mathematics professional development for elementary teachers: Building trust within a school-based mathematics education community