Schools around the world: involving teachers in international professional development

International tests such as the Third International Mathematics and Science study (TIMSS) provide us with numerical scores on mathematics and science achievement, which are then ranked. However these rankings obscure other contextual information; they do not portray how and why students achieve at particular levels, nor do they provide teachers with guidance and insights in how to improve their teaching. The project discussed in this paper utilises student work and teacher commentaries on the work to show what teachers expect students to achieve and how those expectations compare across national boundaries. The student work and teacher commentaries are displayed on the project web site, allowing teachers to readily examine what constitutes typical work, best work and sub-standard work in other countries as well as in other parts of their own. Teachers can then participate in on-line discussions about the content and assessment of their student work, engaging them as active researchers in an effort to define student achievement as a reflection of curricular rigour and teacher expectations.