NSF Awards: 2101667
Welcome to this discussion!
Thank you so much for stopping by and watching our video we are so looking forward to you sharing your thoughts and helping us think through our questions. We are currently in the first year, the planning phase, of this project. Our goal is to iteratively design and research the adaptation of an existing job-embedded professional development developed by Teachers Development Group, the Math Studio. The goal is to develop a Community Centered Math Studio version to support anti-bias teaching. Teacher leaders, teachers and administrators draw on students’ and caregivers’ as well as community members’ expertise to develop and implement mathematics lessons. We will also develop an Anti-bias Mathematics Education Framework.
The project’s outcomes will contribute to theories of how teacher leaders build adaptive expertise for teaching and leading to reduce bias in classrooms, departments, schools, and districts. In addition, the project will contribute new and adapted research instruments on anti-bias teaching and leading. The research outcomes will add to the growing research base that describes the nature of equitable mathematics teaching in K-12 classrooms and increases access to meaningful mathematics for students, teachers, and communities.
Please leave feedback, questions, and comments in general and in particular related to our questions:
- As we think about anti-bias mathematics professional development, what do we need to consider in the design and research?
- What Insights can you provide on collaborative work with families and communities within district partnerships?
Thank you for helping us think through things!
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Welcome! We are so excited you are here. We are in the first year of our project and welcome any question/comment/feedback and have some we posed to start discussion
Please link to your own work if it is related so we can all learn with each other.
Remy Dou
Theodore Chao
Tabatha Rainwater
(2) In my novice experience, (of one year, total...) it's been critical that as an instrument of research, I practice consistently handing the power and expertise to the families. I am ever aware of the power dynamics and want to consistently make sure that our families feel valued and see their role in shaping the project. I try to send emails reaffirming to the parents how our parent leaders' voices shaped the direction of our work. Also, it really helps us to have the university person communicating with the families be an insider, IE: parents of children in the district, in the same area if possible.
Question: I would love to hear more about your (planned?) parent/teacher community development.
Remy Dou
Rebekah Elliott
Tabatha,
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate your attention to the power dynamics between schools and families. Have you found research tools that have helped trace the connection and attention to power between schools and families? We are in the midst of developing the design of the PD which will be ongoing over this next year as we engage in design research.
Remy Dou
Rebekah Elliott
Tabatha,
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate your attention to the power dynamics between schools and families. Have you found research tools that have helped trace the connection and attention to power between schools and families? We are in the midst of developing the design of the PD which will be ongoing over this next year as we engage in design research.
Emmanuel Nti-Asante
Nti-Asante, E.(2022, April 21-24). STEM thinking in the cultural making: The case of a Ghanaian woodworker. [roundtable]. 2022 American Educational Research Association. DOI: 10.3102/IP.22.1885470
https://aera22-aera.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=54-E6-1A-7E-41-27-38-66-14-8C-86-70-63-ED-DA-71
Remy Dou
Cathery Yeh
Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education
Thank you for sharing your article. Can't wait to read this piece and to connect soon.
Remy Dou
Theodore Chao
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Emmanuel thanks for stopping by we would love to connect!
Gerald Knezek
Hurrah for this project! And hello from simEquity, also posted in the Video Showcase. We are studying implicit bias in teachers through a simulator.
Regarding: As we think about anti-bias mathematics professional development, I learned to love math (and later became a math major) long before school was on my horizon. I also had a middle school great math teacher that featured projects of local relevance beyond the textbook.
My opinion: Parents and families are where the fear of math often begins; current teachers at the primary School level also have this aversion they unknowingly transmit. So maybe professional development needs to focus on teachers at stages BEFORE students arrive at a certified math class.
G. Knezek
Remy Dou
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
I just checked out your video ... I would love to learn more about the simulation. I tried the online light version but I think I need to play with it more.
Rhonda Christensen
Hi Eva, This is an interesting project. We have measured dispositions toward math for a long time and they are always lower than everything else. That is an issue as math is the gatekeeper for so many other fields. There are modules within simSchool that focus on math as well as a way to create your own content.
Remy Dou
Patrik Lundh
This seems like very promising work! I have a couple of questions. First, I'm curious about how the anti-bias PD connects to the pedagogy or instructional activities in the classroom. Second, is the idea that these supports for teachers would work in a general sense, or are there certain kinds of instructional materials or curricula that are more appropriate for applying the anti-bias tools? Thanks!
Remy Dou
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Hi Patrik, thank you for your questions. Our approach is to work with what the teachers/students are already doing and build on that by incorporating the community into all aspects of education. I am sure there are curricula that vary though (shout out to our books coming out this summer (link to one of the three https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/middle-school-m...). In another project (https://stemforall2022.videohall.com/presentati...) we are working on creating specific tasks that teachers can adjust.
Patrik Lundh
That's great. Thanks for sharing that resource!
Theodore Chao
Wow! I love this work and am so excited by the community and caretaker Math Studio. I see a lot of ways that these studios can position children and their caretakers as holders of math knowledge. I wonder if it might be helpful for the PIs to also have their own children present at the Math Studios, to show their own identities as parents as well as researchers. I also wonder about housing these Math Studios not in schools or classrooms, but in community spaces like playgrounds, houses of worship, or libraries that are open to all.
Remy Dou
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Teddy what great ideas, thank you for sharing with us.
Remy Dou
Assistant Professor
My thoughts definitely resonate with many of the encouraging and positive comments above. I'm inspired by the work you and your team are carrying out, and I'm especially encouraged by your focus on creating frameworks and tools that curriculum developers can ado/apt. Given your work with K-12 student populations, I'm curious about how factors related to child development inform the guidelines and frameworks by which to consider the relevance of different topics. Similarly, I wonder whether the relevance to child development is not so much related to the topic as it is to students' learning experiences.
Thank you for your wonderful work and contribution to the video showcase!
Remy Dou
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Hi Remy,
By incorporating the Social Justice. we focus on different developmental levels of the students with respect to the topics. Standards https://www.learningforjustice.org/frameworks/s...
Rhonda Christensen
Harrison Pinckney
Assistant Professor
Considering some of the missteps that have been reported nationally around culturally insensitive Math curriculum, this project is timely and needed. I love the disruption of the curriculum to ensure bias is removed to provide a more welcoming learning environment for students. I appreciate that this project seeks to engage the students social network (e.g., parents) as well. Have you considered how to advance this concept further to address anti-racism? What potential do you see for this approach being embraced by other STEM disciplines.
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Hi Harrison, thank you for your questions. We are at the beginning of our work and are tackling the ideas of how to recognize our own biases and how to connect current curricula more to the students in the classroom. Questions like: What do we need to know about our students in the classroom and the community to even be able to create such tasks. We are also trying to learn from scholars of color who are already doing this work. thanks for pushing us!
LaShawnda Lindsay
Research Scientist
Engaging historically marginalized students in mathematics is a critical topic. Can you share a little about how your anti-bias curriculum has helped to participation of this population.
I am curious about the redesigned curriculum. What did that process entail? What new discoveries came out of this process?
Eva Thanheiser
Professor
Hi LaShawnda,
The idea is not to create an anti-bias curriculum but work with teachers to adapt their current curriculum with an anti-bias framework. To this end we are experimenting with frameworks as well as the Social Justice Standards https://www.learningforjustice.org/frameworks/s.... We are just at the beginning. Would love to hear suggestions.
Ho-Chieh Lin
Thank you for sharing your work. Your team's project is so impactful as it interweaves math, social justice, community, and anti-bias framework. I was curious about what your plan for the community-centered math studio looks like. The collaborative model sounds ambitious. :)