Working and Learning in Collaborative Groups: What’s Key to Mathematics Teachers?

This chapter presents and examines the accounts of four mathematics teachers focused on improving their professional practice through collaborative group experiences. The teachers work in very different contexts and were involved in very different types of collaborative groups, yet their accounts reveal that there are key elements of their collaborative group experiences, and outcomes of those experiences, that resonate across locations and activities. The chapter is presented in three sections. First, the aims of examining the collection of teacher accounts are identified and some observations related to common design features of the four collaborative groups are presented. Second, the four teachers’ stories are provided. And third, a synthesis of lessons learned from the experience of these teachers is presented, and questions are proposed to provoke consideration of how these might inform directions for mathematics teachers working and learning in collaborative groups in the future.