Learning to teach mathematics inclusively: Development of a research-based interdisciplinary professional development program

Abstract

For quality development in inclusive subject matter classrooms of middle schools, there exist inclusive instructional approaches and empirical findings from psychology, special needs education, and subject matter didactics. However, programs for professional develoment (PD) are still missing which integrate these findings and approaches in an interdisciplinary and situated way. The article presents the development of a research-based interdisciplinary professional development program for mathematics teachers and special needs teachers that started from qualitative investigations of teachers’ perspectives for specifying what teachers should learn and in which perspective they should do so. The article provide insights into the underlying design research project in which the PD program was iteratively developed, tested, and investigated. The developed PD program for teaching mathematics inclusively is presented: Within five case-based PD sessions, participating teachers work on an integrated instructional approach and collectively experiment with it for the case of an inclusive teaching unit for percentages. The PD program empowers the teachers to (a) identify demands for four relevant learning prerequisites (mathematical understanding, language proficiency, working memory and strategies/metacognitive regulation), (b) set differentiated priorities, (c) support students adaptively and (d) orchestrate joint learning situations.