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Abstract
Teacher professional development is essential to improve our schools efforts in teaching algebra. This study explores classroom practices and collaboration patterns of middle school teachers three years after their participation in a professional learning project focused on student thinking around the topics of algebra. During the two year project teachers participated in content-development courses, engaged in reflection on their teaching, and created communities of learners within and between their schools. Each year of the project, the teachers participated in a two week summer institute and monthly study group and lesson study sessions. Research is needed to help teacher educators better understand how professional development influences the work of mathematics teachers over time. Exploring this idea requires coming to understand what it means for a teacher to engage in ongoing learning and then how professional development influences or contributes to changes in his or her practice. This study aims to provide the research community with an inside look at teachers perspectives on the issues surrounding incorporating research findings on best practices in teaching mathematics into their planning and lesson implementation. Since this study follows participants after the end of a professional development project, it extends the original research on the effectiveness of the professional development project that was conducted and provides insight on the elements of the professional development project that were actually sustained in teacher practice over time. This study will contribute to meeting this need by responding to the following research questions: 1) How does participation in a mathematics professional development program support participating teachers self assessment of their mathematical knowledge for teaching? 2) How do teachers think their participation in a mathematics professional development program focusing on student thinking has influenced their mathematics teaching? 3) What are some of the changes that occur in participating teachers patterns of collaboration with colleagues during and after the professional development program?