Teachers Grow Mathematically Together: A Case Study from Data Analysis

During the past two years, we have been engaged in a collaborative effort focused on improving middle-grades statistics instruction in the Madison School District in Phoenix, Arizona. Part of our work has entailed rethinking what might constitute an instructional “unit” that highlights the importance of students' engaging in genuine data analysis while paying attention to the conventions of the discipline (e.g., calculating measures of central tendency and using correct procedures for creating graphs). Central to our exploration (or lack thereof) of the tasks. In so doing, it would provide intellectual resources for the teachers to use as they anticipated how students might reason. The cyclic process of task solving and task posing supported the teachers' developing understandings of the mathematics they teach while placing students' ways of reasoning in the foreground. This process presented a continuous improvement model that guided the work of the group. An overarching goal was to investigate what mathematics should comprise the middle-grades units on statistical data analysis. This information could only be examined by first understanding the mathematics.