STUDY PROTOCOL article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1656320
This article is part of the Research TopicMathematics teachers' construction and enactment of disciplinary knowledgeView all 4 articles
A Case Study: Engaging a Mathematics Instructor in Professional Development Designed to Influence How They Conceptualize Inquiry Learning
Provisionally accepted
- Baylor University, Waco, United States
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Inquiry learning and variants of it have become more popular in recent years as an alternative to traditional lecture-style teaching. Given its success and importance, it becomes imperative to continue to provide professional development to enhance instructors' knowledge base so that they are positioned to promote learning through inquiry. While researchers have explored participants' experiences in inquiry professional development initiatives, fewer have presented fine-grained analyses of a participant's experiences and the mechanisms designed to engender shifts in their conceptions of inquiry learning. In this case study, I fill this gap by exploring a postsecondary mathematics faculty's (Amy, a pseudonym) image of active learning (a form of inquiry) and professional development experiences designed to influence her image of active learning in an alternative way. My results suggest that Amy's characterization of active learning has been influenced by her identity as a pure mathematics researcher and reflects the practices of a mathematician. Moreover, I conclude that the strategic introduction of reified artifacts could be productive to support participants' understanding of the process entailed in operationalizing inquiry learning.
Keywords: Inquiry learning, case study, Active Learning, Knowledge base, mathematicaltasks, Professional Development, Constructivist epistemology, communities of practice
Received: 29 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ireland. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Josiah Ireland, josiah_ireland@baylor.edu
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