Simulating Equitable Discussions Using Practice-Based Teacher Education in Math Professional Learning

Abstract

How teachers position students sends powerful messages about what and who is valued in mathematics and can ultimately impact whether students see themselves as mathematical sense-makers. In this chapter, the authors report on a professional learning intervention where they used digital clinical simulations to explore how mathematics teachers position students with algorithmic responses, (mis)conceptions, and alternative approaches. They found that teachers made substantial changes when facilitating simulated small-group discussions, meaning they created space for all student(s) to share their thinking and positioned them all as sense-makers. However, teachers only minimally changed their approach to simulated whole-class discussions. Though some teachers elected to start their whole-class discussion off with the alternative approaches (concrete and non-algorithmic), simulated students were positioned as strugglers in need of remediation not as valuable contributors.