Reflections from the end:

• Regular, ongoing professional development focused on specific, assessed needs.
• Professional development that is tied to the curriculum materials, teaching practices, and assessment of student understanding, misunderstanding, confusions and partial understanding.
• Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration in any form, format, as often as possible focused on development of professional conversations focused on the work of teaching and learning. No solo stars - we are a jazz ensemble.
• Open, rigorous dialogues that create a lot of space for dissention and discussion that invites everyone into the problem solving process. Acknowledge that there are many paths to success and keep your focus on the finding solutions.
• Inter-visitations - focused, formal, informal, within one school, across schools, within one discipline, across disciplines, above and below grade levels, etc.
• Focusing on the essence or the heart of the matter - not just the surface issues that are easy to enforce.
• Focus on one or two aspects of the curriculum for a long period of time (e.g. fractions.) This strategy sends the message that this work takes time, acknowledges the complexity of the topic and of teaching the topic and will invite us to get below our usual perspectives and habits--depth over breadth.
• A large, varied, differentiated menu of professional development strategies and a forgiving, welcoming, open policy that invites teachers into the work on their terms and rewards them on your terms. (e.g. Any teacher can come to any workshop or participate in any lesson study but only those who create time to work with others and open their own doors will be invited to become teacher leaders.)
• Celebrate, play, have fun. It's too hard otherwise.

Inhibitors

• Rhetoric that polarizes people and uses jargon that is not simple, straightforward and easy to understand by non-educators. Educators often focus on the fine grain aspects of teaching and learning while parents and the public are focused on a larger grain size. The conversations get derailed when we are speaking about nuances rather than the essence of the issue.
• Attitudes and beliefs about mathematics and about education that perpetuate the status quo make it difficult to move forward. It appears that the status quo needs no supporters and is well organized and controls the press and the politicians. Educators are so busy doing their jobs at the school level that they do not see it as their job to actively promote policies that are educationally sound. As a result we see ourselves as the "victims" of policies that drain our enthusiasm and our ability to impact students in a positive way.
• State and local regulations and requirements that are mis-aligned with what effective teacher preparation and professional development would most likely have to entail to ensure student achievement. For example, requiring higher-level mathematics courses for teachers rather than courses designed to help teachers understand deeply and flexibly the mathematics they will be teaching.
• Union rules and regulations that end up impeding the time devoted to collaborative professional development. In NYC teachers have a minimum of one preparation period per day. This time is often seen as sacrosanct for the individual teacher. Any formal infringement on this time is grounds for filing a "grievance" against the administration. This perpetuates isolation and independence and makes it difficult to create learning communities designed to develop the profession.