数学教育和教授数学，然而社区之间的紧张互动，被称为“数学战争”，使这一点远非显而易见。我的研究是这个PD的一个案例研究，总体目标是了解PD是如何被认为是成功的。为了深入了解数学家的工作以及他们与老师的互动，我扮演了一个参与观察者的角色;我与教师一起制定任务和课程计划，观察他们的课程，并与他们讨论。两党对民主党的期望和目标是不同的。教师希望加深教师对数学的理解，教师希望PD主要解决教学问题——课堂准备活动和教学策略。此外，社区在认识、实践、教学和学习数学的方式上是如此不同，似乎PD注定要失败，但它并没有。我的研究问题(省略理论术语)是:1。教师和教师对数学和教学的哪些方面的观点提供了学习的机会?2. What was the nature of the learning that took place, on the part of the teachers and on the part of the instructors? What aspects of the PD supported this learning? I found that differences in the parties perspectives, though they often caused conflict, were what fueled the learning in the PD. The parties learned both from and with each other, often co-producing insights that were new to all. A mutual pursuit of relevance emerged as crucial for the success of the PD; instructors strove to design a PD that would be relevant for teaching, yet without compromising their own conceptions of mathematical depth, while teachers also took responsibility for relevance, through constantly seeking ways in which the mathematics that they were learning might contribute to their practice as teachers. This mutual responsibility for relevance permitted discrepancies between what the instructors were teaching and what the teachers were learning, which allowed the PD to be considered successful from different, sometimes conflicting perspectives. Primary school PD seldom sets mathematical goals, assuming the content is straightforward, in spite of research to the contrary. This dissertation provides an "existence proof" for an alternative - a PD that addressed both mathematical and pedagogical goals, by capitalizing not only on the instructors' mathematical expertise, but also on the teachers' pedagogical experience. It also provides empirical evidence for the relevance of research mathematicians in teacher education, and suggests a model of cooperation between communities that do not usually get along, yet have much to learn from each other.
