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Dissertation Abstract
This three-study dissertation project aims to understand the role of critical reflection in supporting teacher candidates to develop their identities as equitable mathematics teachers and enact equitable practices in elementary mathematics classrooms. The problem of practice this project aims to address is that there are limited opportunities at teacher preparation programs to engage in work that integrates attending to issues of inequities and the learning to teach specific content. Learning opportunities are often within compartmentalized coursework (e.g. course on multicultural education or on equity and diversity and methods course for each content area). The activity tested in this project addresses the problem of practice by creating an opportunity for teacher candidates to confront their own biases and assumptions within the context of a math methods course.
The first study examines the ways in which teacher candidates notice their own biases and assumptions about children and mathematics learning and how their noticing relates to the ways they center equity in their teaching. The second study builds on the first by applying what was learned to improve the self-confrontation activity for the next cohort. The problem of practice the second study aims to address is the inconsistency between candidates’ equity-oriented discourse and their enactment and reflections on their math lessons. To better understand the nature of this inconsistency, this study focuses on understanding the spectrum of primary teacher candidates’ conception of equitable mathematics teaching based on their language use. In addition, this study conceptualizes candidates’ varying learning trajectories towards becoming equitable mathematics teachers. The third study aims to understand the process of developing and sustaining a research-practice partnership between the teacher educator and the researcher as they collaborated to integrate the self-confrontation activity into the coursework.