Research on Supporting the Endeavour of Mathematics Teaching: Professional Learning and Beyond

In this chapter, we review Australasian research about pre-service and in-service teachers’ professional learning (PL), development, and growth in mathematics education. We situate this research within the bigger picture to which it is primarily contributing: supporting good teaching in mathematics classrooms. We first seek to understand the overt, assumed, and implied conceptualisations of teacher PL and related mathematics teaching that underpinned the reviewed research, and its purposes and drivers. Noting the diversity present in conceptual tools used to study teacher PL, we then discuss data that were generated and used in this research. Finally, we examine the reviewed literature to consider what teachers learned about mathematics teaching (i.e., what changed) and how their PL was enabled and constrained. We highlight a need for deeper conceptualisation of teachers’ PL, a greater recognition of the role of teacher autonomy, and a move beyond identifying enablers and barriers to professional learning towards ensuring that structures and systems sustainably support teachers endeavouring to enact change.