MET, NCTM & AMTE Early Career Research Grant
Supporting First Year Teachers to Enact Their Visions of Equitable Mathematics Teaching
This project is designed to support first-year elementary teachers (FYTs) who are committed to the equitable teaching and learning of mathematics. Through the development of a community of praxis among FYTs in Washington and Michigan, we center FYTs’ conceptions about equity-based teaching practices. This cohort acts as critical friends and supportive colleagues, learning and growing from the challenges that they face throughout their first year in the classroom. This grant will fund a second cohort of first year teachers and recent graduates from WWU.
The research questions guiding this project are:
- How do FYTs’ visions of equitable mathematics teaching change over their first year teaching?
- What support do FYTs need to enact equity-based teaching practices in the mathematics classroom?
- What does it mean to be MTEs supporting FYTs to enact equity-based practices in their classrooms?
Specifically, we are looking at (a) how FYTs’ visions of equitable mathematics teaching relate to how they challenge inequity in their classrooms, (b) which equity-based teaching practices FYTs enact, consider, and seek support in enacting, and (c) how FYTs and university mentors act as critical friends, (i.e., collaborators who enhance each other’s inquiries through optimal feedback, prompts for self-reflection, and support for articulating and making explicit one’s thinking (Breslin et al. 2008)) in relation to FYTs and each other.