Designing a Professional Development Model for Values Alignment Strategies in Inclusive Mathematics Instruction

Classroom practices exhibit the fabric of the bundle of values that reflect the characteristics of the teacher, students, curriculum, organisational structure, and culture. This complex structure includes the values of students in the inclusive classroom, which increases diversity, along with the reflections of the resource rooms and the values of the support education institution. As an inclusive education component, mathematics teachers should use values alignment strategies to ensure harmony between student and teacher values while maintaining effective instructional practices. In this sense, this chapter suggested a professional development model for mathematics teachers. The participants of this case study consist of a gifted student and his two mathematics teachers in inclusive education. With its self-, peer- and group video analyses and student feedback phases, the model includes interviews conducted to analyse the classroom video recordings of the lessons for four weeks. The ongoing and retrospective analyses revealed that the teachers transitioned from teacher-focused values alignment strategies to student-focused ones. While the most important phase affecting this transition is student feedback, self- and peer-video analyses also highlighted strategies that consider student thinking, such as refuge and reprioritising. Some suggestions were made to help implement and revise the professional development model introduced in this chapter.