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

获得高质量STEM教育的机会因生活地点的不同而有很大差异。此外，早期职业教师在最初几年的教学中需要支持，以获得成功，并帮助他们留在这个行业。该项目旨在为在职和初任小学教师提供更多改进数学教学的机会，以支持格鲁吉亚少数民族农村社区的少数民族青年，这些社区很少有机会接触到小学数学专家。该项目在5年的时间里跟踪并支持初级数学教师（bt）和初级数学教练（EMCs）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指导对bt教学实践和EMCs辅导实践的反思和对话。这些工具为揭示偏见和公平话语和任务设计的理想教学目标提供了数据。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注重公平的小学数学教练；b)开发和完善一个完全在线的小学数学和指导研究生课程序列，以准备EMCs； c)实施一种创新的大学监督和引导bt的模式。在5年的时间里，10名小学数学教育中心将参与课程学习，并通过一个虚拟社区得到支持，在他们的学校和地区发展小学数学教学。这些教练将支持至少10名初任教师，在他们进入该领域的头几年教学期间，建立公平的数学学习社区。这种方法很重要，因为在乔治亚州的大多数地区，正式的入职支持是罕见的，教师们离开这个领域的人数创历史新高，因为他们感到措手不及。数据来源将包括教学视频、教师反思、叙述性访谈和文献分析。这项研究将采用个案研究和叙述方法，分析从bt和EMCs收集的各种丰富数据。该项目的目标是准备和支持EMCs，这有可能极大地改变bt的专业发展，使教师教育重新专业化，并为所有学生提供更公平的数学教育。这项提议的研究可以作为一个模型，在农村地区建立更多的STEM教练网络。该奖项由探索研究preK-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preK-12学生和教师对科学、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实证依据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.