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Background

Over the past 2 years, teachers in a large elementary school district have received extensive professional development in Math Structures, a program aimed at having teachers add to their teaching of mathematics strategies that promote student understandings that are more constructivist and conceptual (as compared with teaching only computational routines). The district wants to evaluate the effectiveness of the Math Structures program, as well as provide feedback to teachers about their levels of implementation. The district hires a group of consultants to develop an observation instrument, conduct the observations, and analyze and report the findings.