Teachers’ collective noticing of children’s mathematical thinking in self-facilitated collaborative inquiry

Many educators assume the value of teachers working together and collaboration has the potential to help teachers learn from each other and develop their practice (Crockett, 2002). Although the general value for teachers of participating in collaborative inquiry groups has been established, working together does not guarantee that opportunities for learning and development will be created (Horn & Kane, 2015). The purpose of my qualitative research study is to examine the kinds of opportunities teachers create to notice children’s mathematical thinking as they interact with one another in self-facilitated collaborative inquiry groups intended to support teachers in their development of professional noticing. Research suggests that the practice of noticing children’s mathematical thinking is a learnable, but complex skill that takes time — often years — to develop (Jacobs et al., 2010). Using techniques from discourse analysis, my findings suggest that teachers participating in self-facilitated collective inquiry not only have the potential to support one another in noticing, but can also take an opportunity to jointly construct a student strategy, perhaps helping teachers to engage in more complete descriptions of student thinking. When teachers participate in discussions that are grounded in the details of student strategies, they have an opportunity to continue to develop expertise in their noticing of children’s mathematical thinking through the articulation and reflection of children’s mathematical thinking.