Teachers as learners of equitable discussion practices

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Growing evidence about the powerful effects of skillful teaching on students’ learning creates a need for professional development that impacts teachers’ actual practice. Teaching practices have been shown to play a crucial role in the reproduction or disruption of injustice. This project aims to create opportunities for teachers to notice and understand how normalized practice often reproduces inequity and learn ways to disrupt typical patterns of inequity in their classroom. The project will design and study professional development that works on practice centered on the disruption of patterns of injustice. This project focuses on classroom discussions because they can be a key site for either reproducing or disrupting inequities and they have been established as a powerful instructional practice. In addition to studying the impact of the professional development on teachers’ teaching skill, the project also explores teachers’ perceptions of their learning, influences on teachers’ professional learning, and the impact of a mathematics-focused professional development versus a generalized focus on teaching practice and perception of learning. The project will generate new knowledge regarding ways in which elementary mathematics teachers can be supported to learn effective teaching practices. Teachers benefit from professional development that addresses both the technical and contextual aspects of teaching practice, including the identities of their students and associated patterns of inequity in schools and society. This research will examine how elementary teachers’ perceptions of professional learning and influences on such learning in combination with professional development on leading discussions, impact their skill with and willingness to take up teaching that disrupts patterns of inequity in classrooms. In terms of influences on teachers’ professional learning, the project will address teachers’ beliefs about students and learning, their understanding of the pervasiveness of inequity in normalized practice, contextual factors such as their relationship with administration or their status in the school community, and their readiness for, skill with, and implementation of the practice upon beginning the professional learning. The studies will examine: (1) What are teachers’ perceptions of their own learning, discussion-leading practice, and attention to disrupting inequity? How well matched are these perceptions with external measures? What supports do teachers perceive as impacting their learning? How does principal selection criteria and communication with teachers about their selection impact teachers’ perceptions and engagement? (2) In what ways does professional development on leading discussions combined with peer and coach support impact teachers’ skill and willingness to engage in that teaching practice including disrupting patterns of inequity? (3) Does a mathematics focus produce different outcomes than a generalized focus for teaching practice or perception of learning? The project will collect and analyze several types of data, including measures of skill with leading mathematics and literacy discussions, teacher perceptions, and willingness and skill with disrupting patterns of inequity during discussions. This project will contribute foundational knowledge and theory related to (a) teachers’ perceptions of and influences on their learning to lead discussions with attention to disrupting inequity, (b) components of professional development that impact teaching practice, and c) how subject matter specificity effects these first two areas.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.