From Learning Loss to Lasting Impact: How Our District Built Teacher Capacity Through Math Professional Learning

Dr. Mona Dickson, a district Director of Curriculum and Instruction, wrote this in 2026 about building teacher understanding of fractions through professional learning. A new section below adds what national research and recent test results say about fractions instruction and about professional development that changes teaching.

Like many districts across the country, our district saw a concerning decline in student math achievement after the COVID-19 pandemic. We could see the gap growing, but we struggled to pinpoint why it was happening.

As Director of Curriculum & Instruction, I decided to take a deep dive into our math assessment data. When I broke it down by strand, I found the problem: key foundational concepts, like fractions, were consistently the weak point across all levels.

These skills are the building blocks for growth and success in mathematics, so we knew we had to take action to boost math achievement in our schools. If students don’t have a strong grasp on these early concepts, the gaps only widen over time.

Improving achievement begins with instruction

As we dug deeper to pinpoint the root of the issue, it became clear that this was not just a student deficit—it was also an instructional one.

Many of our teachers, like many educators nationwide, learned math themselves through a procedural approach, following a series of steps to get the right answer. This method works during the learning phase when math problems are simple, but it doesn’t scale well as learners advance to more complex math.

In the classroom, that meant that teachers often resorted to instruction focused on algorithms rather than conceptual understanding. Students often reached the right answer, but they didn’t understand the “why” behind it. Teachers had no trouble recognizing when students reached the wrong solution, but without the context of why the answer was wrong, teachers struggled to diagnose and address the underlying misconceptions.

Supporting teachers with a stronger foundation

It was clear that both our students and teachers needed support in mathematics, and we realized quickly that adopting a new curriculum or investing in technology would not be enough to solve this problem.

If we wanted to improve student outcomes in a meaningful, sustainable way, we needed to invest in our teachers. We needed to build our educators’ capacity to understand mathematics deeply and to respond to student thinking in real time.

That realization led us to implement the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP), a professional learning solution for mathematics. We were drawn to the program because of its solid foundation in research and its focus on how students actually learn.

It’s not a program that sits on top of instruction; it’s a deep professional learning experience that transforms how teachers understand math and think about math instruction. The program focuses on learning progressions, helping educators understand how mathematical concepts develop over time and how to meet students wherever they are in that progression.

Targeting implementation for the biggest impact

We began our implementation by focusing on the area where our data showed the greatest need: fractions. The first session was at a targeted group of schools, and in addition to our teachers, we invited instructional coaches and school leaders to participate in the training. This was intentional, supporting an extension of learning beyond individual classrooms to become part of the broader instructional culture across our district.

Even in the early days of our implementation, we saw a noticeable shift in how teachers approached math instruction. They became more focused on the “why” behind math concepts, asking students to explain their thinking and discuss their strategies with their peers. Students responded well to this shift, engaging in mathematics at a whole new level.

At the same time, something equally powerful happened among our educators. Instead of merely focusing on how to turn wrong answers into right ones, teachers began to examine students’ thinking and use that insight to improve future instruction.

In our professional learning communities, teachers and instructional coaches began leveraging real student work to decide next steps. This created a shared language and framework for discussing math, supporting a collaborative environment for impactful instructional change.

A Transformative Professional Learning Experience

Our educators now have a deeper understanding of mathematical progressions and are better equipped to identify and address misconceptions. This shift in how they see their role in the learning process has led to greater confidence in teaching math conceptually and adapting instruction based on student needs. Perhaps most importantly, they see themselves as learners—continuously refining their practice to better serve their students.

We are already seeing early signs that this initiative is making a difference. In some classrooms, we are seeing improvements in student performance and a reduction in the number of students struggling at the lowest levels.

Across our district—even in some schools that have yet to hold their professional trainings—student engagement is noticeably stronger. When students understand the “why” behind math, they are more willing to participate, take risks, and persist through challenges.

Lasting impact for math instruction

Professional development is often viewed as something separate from the day-to-day work of teaching. But when it is connected to real classroom practice and equips educators with a whole new mindset on instruction, it becomes a powerful driver of change.

Our district’s experience will continue to evolve, but the impact has already taken root. By focusing on teacher capacity, we are building a stronger foundation for math instruction and improved student outcomes.

Math professional learning for teachers: what evidence says about fractions and teacher capacity

Math professional learning for teachers works best when it is tied to a specific weakness in student data, which is the approach Dickson describes above when fractions emerged as the weak strand across grade levels. This section places that account beside national research on fractions instruction, recent national test results and a large review of professional development, and notes what the evidence does and does not show.

What national research says about fractions instruction

In September 2010 the What Works Clearinghouse of the Institute of Education Sciences published a practice guide on developing effective fractions instruction for kindergarten through eighth grade. It made five recommendations: build on students’ informal understanding of sharing and proportions, help students see fractions as numbers, help students understand why fraction procedures make sense, build understanding of ratio and proportion before teaching cross-multiplication, and make improving teachers’ understanding of fractions a high priority in professional development. The guide rated the evidence for the second and third recommendations as moderate and the evidence for the others, including the one on teacher learning, as minimal. That rating is worth stating plainly: the guide supports the direction of Dickson’s work but did not find strong studies showing that professional development about fractions raises student results.

The guide’s focus on why procedures work matches Dickson’s observation that teachers who learned math through steps often taught algorithms, and that students reached answers without understanding the reasoning. The guide is older than the pandemic, so it describes the instruction problem, not the learning loss.

What recent test results show

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the main national measure. In 2024, according to the Nation’s Report Card, the average fourth grade math score was 2 points higher than in 2022 and 3 points lower than in 2019. Thirty-nine percent of fourth graders were at or above the Proficient level, and 24 percent were below Basic, which was 5 percentage points higher than in 2019. This section reports fourth grade results only and makes no claim about eighth grade. These data show that recovery is partial, and they offer a national comparison for a district reviewing its own trends. They cannot show whether any one program worked, because a district’s results are affected by many other factors.

What a large review says about professional development

The Learning Policy Institute’s 2017 review of 35 studies by Linda Darling-Hammond, Maria Hyler and Madelyn Gardner listed seven features of effective professional development: content focus, active learning, collaboration, models of effective practice, coaching and expert support, feedback and reflection, and sustained duration. Several features appear in Dickson’s description: a focus on one mathematical area, instructional coaches and school leaders joining teachers, and professional learning communities that use real student work to plan next steps. This section does not examine the OGAP program itself, so it makes no claim about how closely the program follows each feature.

Questions for a district measuring impact

Dickson reports early signs of improvement in some classrooms and stronger engagement across the district, without figures. A district in this position can decide in advance what it will measure: for example, student results on fraction items from its own assessment compared with similar schools that have not yet trained, teacher ability to identify misconceptions in student work, and classroom observation of students explaining their thinking. A staged rollout, with some schools training first, gives a comparison group for a time, which supports a fair reading of the results. It helps to record what else changed in the same period, such as a new curriculum or schedule.

One more practical point concerns timing. Results from teacher learning usually show first in what teachers do and say, and only later in student scores, so a district that reviews scores alone after one semester may judge a sound program too early or too late. Agreeing in advance on what early signs and later results will count as success keeps the review fair to teachers and to students.

For other leaders, edCircuit’s professional development guide covers how to plan learning that lasts beyond a single workshop.

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