STAAR Teacher Professional Development Project

What is gained or lost by implementing an online version of a teacher development program in mathematics, compared with the face-to-face version? Middle school teachers are participating in our STAAR teacher professional development (TPD) program. The curriculum is based on current research findings regarding how teachers can help all students to transition from arithmetic to algebra. Our approach to supporting teacher learning revolves around facilitated activities in which participating teachers contrast and discuss cases of teachers’ and students’ algebraic thinking, and of classroom teaching. Beginning in summer 2005 we offered two versions of our TPD 3-credit graduate courses, both face-to-face and online, and randomly assigned 30 teachers to one of the two versions.