|
Reducing Inequalities in Opportunities to Learn Mathematics through Adaptive Teacher Professional Development William T. Grant Foundation | $600,000 | 2022-2025 PI: Dr. Rossella Santagata |
|
|
Practice/Policy Question: How does mathematics teacher professional development designed to integrate cognitive and cultural aspects of learning and to be adaptive to local school contexts support teacher learning and the learning opportunities of Latinx students? Background: Studies of math instruction in schools serving low-income students of color have repeatedly documented the lack of opportunities for children to engage in rigorous mathematics as sense makers and problem solvers. Math lessons are instead characterized by rote memorization, highly procedural teaching, overly controlling classroom interaction routines, deficit-based assessments, and content that is disconnected from children’s home lives. Research on children’s development of mathematics understanding and on asset-based, culturally responsive mathematics teaching offers promising directions for reducing inequalities in Latinx students’ opportunities to learn. This study will integrate cognitive and cultural aspects of mathematics learning to co-design with teachers and family/community members a teacher professional development (PD) program that is adaptive to school local contexts. Findings related to teacher vision of high-quality instruction, their views of Latinx students’ capabilities, equitable dimensions of their instruction and student experiences and learning will highlight aspects of the PD design as well as interplays with school/district practices and policies that support or hinder program success, thus advancing research on the role of teacher PD on reducing inequalities in Latinx students’ opportunities to learn. Research Aims or Questions: How do different elementary school sites design and enact an adaptive PD model that integrates Cognitively Guided Instruction and asset-based, culturally responsive teaching to improve the mathematics learning opportunities of their Latinx students? What tensions and system-level barriers characterize the work of the research-practice partnership and the Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) process? How are these resolved and addressed and with what implications for the PD design and enactment? How does adaptive PD as a model for school-wide improvement support teacher learning and the mathematics learning opportunities of their Latinx students? What explains variation in teacher learning at each participating school? Setting and Participants: Two elementary schools serving approximately 700, majority low-income, K-6 Latinx students and their teachers (n = 35-40). Intervention: Adaptive teacher PD integrating Cognitively Guided Instruction and asset-based, culturally responsive teaching that includes school-wide meetings, grade-level meetings, classroom support, and math labs. Research Methods: This study leverages an ongoing research-practice partnership and adopts a DBIR approach to study the PD design, enactment, and adaptation over the course of two years. The project will be structured into three phases: understanding the problem, conjecture mapping, and systematic inquiry. Data will include co-design artifacts, design and PD meeting observations, surveys, and interviews. Through mixed-methods analyses, researchers will examine the co-design process and products, how the PD supported teacher learning—through the analysis of teacher engagement, social network, vision, conceptualizations, and instructional quality—and student experiences and opportunities to learn. |
|
