Facilitators’ noticing of teachers’ responses to student thinking concerning a multiplicative thinking task

Professional development (PD) courses are crucial for the advancement of mathematics education and require facilitators to have specific expertise in navigating complex instructional scenarios. Through a situated examination, this study explores facilitators' (N = 148) noticing of a fictional PD situation concerning multiplication, particularly their use of knowledge elements. Overall, when perceiving student thinking in a fictional PD situation, facilitators demonstrated limited skills with regard to noticing the fictional PD situation. In terms of the interpretation of and decision-making related to teachers' responses to students' solutions, about half of the facilitators superficially interpreted a student's solution and focused on aspects not relevant to the situation. These findings provide insights for aligning future PD courses to better serve the distinct needs of facilitators.