CAREER: Equity Focused Elementary Mathematics: Creating Virtual Mathematics Communities in Rural Georgia

根据居住地的不同，获得高质量STEM教育的机会千差万别。此外，早期职业教师需要在他们教学的头几年获得支持才能取得成功，并帮助他们继续从事这一职业。该项目旨在为在职和初级小学教师提供更多完善其数学教学的机会，以支持格鲁吉亚种族多元化的农村社区的少数族裔青年，这些社区较少获得初级数学专家的帮助。该项目跟踪和支持初任教师(BTS)和初级数学教练(EMCs)在五年多的时间里分别发展和完善他们的数学教学和辅导，使用基于公平的工具来引导对BTS的教学实践和EMCs的指导实践的反思和对话。这些工具提供了数据，以揭示公平话语和任务设计的偏见和理想的教学目标。该项目的目标包括：a)建立一个虚拟远程学习社区，以支持佐治亚州农村各县以公平为重点的小学数学教练；b)开发和完善一个完全在线的小学数学和辅导研究生课程序列，以准备初级数学教师；以及c)为BTS实施一种创新的大学监督和入职模式。在5年的时间里，10个初级数学教师将从事课程工作，并通过一个虚拟社区得到支持，以在其学校和学区发展小学数学教学。这些教练将支持至少十名初任教师在他们执教的头几年进入这个领域时建立公平的数学学习社区。这种方法很重要，因为正式的入职支持在佐治亚州的大多数学区都很少见，而且由于感觉没有准备好，离开这一领域的教师人数创下了纪录。数据来源将包括教学片段的视频、教师反思、叙事性访谈和文件分析。本研究将采用案例研究和叙事学的方法来分析从BTS和EMCS收集到的丰富多样的数据。该项目的目标是准备和支持EMCS，这可能会极大地改变BTS的专业发展，并使师范教育重新专业化，为所有学生提供更公平的数学教育。这项拟议的研究可以作为在农村地区建立更多STEM教练网络的典范。该奖项由发现研究预科-12项目(DRK-12)资助，该项目旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高预科-12年级学生和教师的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验上的证明。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Access to high quality STEM education is highly variable depending on where one lives. In addition, early career teachers need support during their first years of teaching to be successful and help them stay in the profession. This project aims to provide in-service and beginning elementary school teachers increased opportunities to refine their mathematics teaching to support minoritized youth in racially diverse rural communities in Georgia that have less access to elementary mathematics specialists. This project follows and supports both beginning teachers (BTs) and elementary mathematics coaches (EMCs) over 5 years to develop and refine their mathematics teaching and coaching, respectively, using equity-based tools to guide reflection and conversations about both the BTs’ instructional practices and the EMCs’ coaching practices. The tools provide data to uncover biases and aspirational pedagogical targets for equitable discourse and task design. The goals of the project include: a) establishing a virtual distance learning community to support equity focused elementary mathematics coaches across rural counties in Georgia, b) developing and refining a fully online elementary mathematics and coaching graduate coursework sequence to prepare EMCs, and c) implementing an innovative model of university supervision and induction for BTs.Over the 5-year period, ten EMCs will engage in coursework, and be supported through a virtual community to develop elementary mathematics teaching and learning in their schools and districts. The coaches will support at least ten beginning teachers to develop equitable mathematics learning communities as they enter the field during their first years of teaching. This approach is important because formalized induction support is rare in most districts in Georgia, and teachers are leaving the field in record numbers because they feel unprepared. Data sources will include videos of teaching episodes, teacher reflections, narrative interviews, and document analysis. The study will employ case study and narrative methodologies in analyzing the varied and rich data collected with BTs and EMCs. The project’s goal of preparing and supporting EMCs has potential to dramatically shift the professional development of BTs, and to re-professionalize teacher education and provide more equitable mathematics education for all students. This proposed study could serve as a model to build additional networks of STEM coaches across rural areas.The award is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.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.