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

获得高质量的STEM教育是高度可变的，这取决于一个人住在哪里。此外，早期职业教师在教学的第一年需要支持，以取得成功，并帮助他们留在这个行业。该项目旨在为在职和初级小学教师提供更多的机会，改进他们的数学教学，以支持格鲁吉亚种族多样的农村社区的少数民族青年，这些社区很少有机会接触小学数学专家。该项目遵循并支持初学者教师（BTs）和小学数学教练（EMCs）在5年内分别开发和完善他们的数学教学和辅导，使用基于公平的工具来指导关于BTs的教学实践和EMCs的辅导实践的反思和对话。这些工具提供数据，以揭示偏见和理想的教学目标，促进公平的讨论和任务设计。该项目的目标包括：a）建立一个虚拟远程学习社区，以支持格鲁吉亚各农村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EMCs，以及c）实施一个创新的大学监督和BTs入门模式。在5年期间，10个EMCs将参与课程工作，并通过虚拟社区获得支持，以发展其学校和地区的小学数学教学。这些教练将支持至少10名新教师在他们第一年的教学中进入该领域时发展公平的数学学习社区。这种方法很重要，因为正式的入门支持在格鲁吉亚的大多数地区很少见，教师们因为感到没有准备而离开这个领域的人数创下了纪录。数据来源将包括教学片段，教师反思，叙事访谈和文件分析的视频。本研究将采用个案研究和叙事方法，分析从BT和EMC收集的丰富多样的数据。该项目的目标是准备和支持EMCs有可能大大改变BTs的专业发展，并重新专业化教师教育，为所有学生提供更公平的数学教育。该奖项由Discovery Research PreK-12项目（DRK-12）资助，旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高PreK-12学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）方面的学习和教学。DRK-12项目中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究以及为拟议项目提供理论和经验依据的先前研究和开发工作的基础上。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.