Moving Toward Approximations of Practice in Teacher Professional Development: Learning to Summarize a Problem-Based Lesson

This chapter describes a set of activities in a professional development intervention with in-service geometry teachers that engaged them in role-playing a lesson summary. The activities included discussion of animations of classroom instruction with examples of how to lead a summary of a problem-based lesson. The animations were representations of teaching that supported the development of shared knowledge about how to summarize a lesson. In addition, the teachers decomposed the practice of summarizing prior to their engagement in a role-play of a summary. This role-play constituted an approximation of practice that enabled the teachers to envision how a summary would unfold in real time and required the teacher leading the summary to make tactical decisions. Observations of a teacher leading a summary in his classroom provided evidence of teacher learning. Overall, the professional development included a sequence of activities that validated teachers’ knowledge and provided them with the capabilities for engaging in an authentic approximation of practice in a safe environment.