Culturally sustaining pedagogy validates students' identities and fosters a sense of belonging and empowerment. Educators attending this session will explore methods for creating a more inclusive learning environment by integrating students' diverse experiences into the math classroom. Through the lens of multiple free desmos classroom lessons, participants will learn how to use a problem-based approach to intentionally increase curiosity and build upon students’ ideas in an effort to provide all learners with access to on-grade-level mathematics.
Three experienced teachers share strategies for making equity both intentional and a regular part of every class, throughout a class. Time will be included for small group discussion of how to apply strategies to their classes and to share ideas with others.
In this session we reflect upon equity in the teaching of mathematics content and how rough draft and revising can be considered an equity-minded pedagogical approach. As a part of being equity-minded, teachers and classmates strive to recognize the strengths in students’ thinking at any stage, including drafts and revisions. We will experience learning through drafting and revising and reflect on equity implications.
Dr. Jansen is a professor in the mathematics education program area in the School of Education at the University of Delaware where she teaches future elementary and secondary teachers. Her research focuses on students’ engagement with mathematics and understanding how pre-service... Read More →
Tuesday January 28, 2025 11:00 - 12:00 MST
Ballroom A
In today's diverse classrooms, multilingual students bring a wealth of linguistic and cultural perspectives that can enrich learning experiences. However, they also face unique challenges in mastering mathematical concepts while simultaneously developing language proficiency. This session will explore practical strategies for creating an inclusive mathematics classroom that supports the needs of multilingual learners. Participants will discover instructional techniques that integrate language development with mathematical reasoning, including the use of visual aids and language scaffolding. Attendees will leave with ready-to-implement strategies that promote equity, enhance student understanding, and cultivate a supportive learning space for multilingual students in mathematics. This session is ideal for educators, instructional coaches, and administrators seeking to ensure all students can thrive in the math classroom.
A critical aspect of culturally responsive learning is selecting tasks that invite students to share their own ideas. In this session, we will determine what makes a task relevant and meaningful as well as use a framework to create culturally relevant tasks that allow teachers to actively respond to different student cultures, backgrounds, and ideas to drive instruction.
It is important for pre-service teachers to not be "tied" to one teacher during their field experiences in math methods courses. Additionally, not factoring pre-service teachers' choice in these field placements leads to discontent, frustration, and often times "mimicking" of the host teacher's teaching. To combat these issues, pre-service teachers enrolled in math methods courses were asked to rotate between a set of mentor teachers. This process proved to be advantageous as it provided opportunities for the pre-service teachers to see, learn, and make sense of a variety of instructional strategies at play in different teachers' classrooms. The interactions with the teachers also helped pre-service teachers carve their own teaching philosophy and methods.
Students come to school with valuable experiences and immense potential. To meet this potential, teachers need to attend to relationships with students and their mathematical thinking as a basis for instructional change to not only work with and from students’ thinking but support their growth and connections over time. In this session, we will unpack three core practices and ideas to create asset-based learning environments to support students’ mathematical brilliance. Specifically, we will discuss listening, centering, and building as foundational, high-leverage teaching practices. We will offer practical ways that teachers can enact these practices within both the whole class and small learning environments.
Are you someone who supports (or wants to support) elementary pre-service teachers’ or new teachers’ learning? Are you looking for ways to help teachers enact equitable math instruction? In this session, we share how teaching cases can be useful for helping pre-service or in-service teachers grapple with the challenges of enacting equitable math instruction. We will share examples of teaching cases that have been designed by current teachers to depict the challenges they’ve encountered when trying to teach elementary math equitably. These cases take up issues such as power dynamics in group work, curriculum that is not representative of students’ experiences, and the impact of cultural beliefs and practices on math learning. We’ll share several cases with participants, engage in discussions about what teachers might learn from the cases, and brainstorm ideas for new cases that can further support teacher learning.
This will be an open discussion where I define Critical Race Theory, explain its use in education, and its particular relevance to mathematics education. Time will be provided for discussion and Q&A.
