Equity in the classroom is on all of our radar these days, or should be. In today’s episode we’re chatting about math equity in the classroom. We’ll break down how we used to do things and how we can do better. Using books, quotes, and research to ground our work of knowing better and doing better in equity in the classroom. 

Today we’ll chat about: 

• 3 things we used to do, and how we can do better
• ways to engage every student & hold high expectations 
• book recommendations to continue the work 

☀️ Summer Math PD ☀️ don’t miss out on this chance to get FREE or low cost pd about MATH! Planning math lessons is one of our topics! MonaMath.com/summerpd to sign up now. 

Links & Books Mentioned in the Episode: 

🤍Choosing to See, Pamela Seda

🤍 Taking Action Grades K-5 NCTM Book

🤍 Taking Action Grades 6-8 NCTM Book 

🤍Guide to Engaging Math Discussions

Books I love & mentioned often: 

📗Adding it Up https://amzn.to/3FzM4as 

📘Children’s Mathematics Cognitively Guided Instruction  https://amzn.to/3FzLMQU 

📙Principles to Action: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All https://amzn.to/42o816h 

📕5 Practices for Orchestarting Math Discusions https://amzn.to/3zagEEl 

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Want to read more about equity in math?

The power a teacher holds to help their students develop a positive math identity is huge. As the instructional leader in your classroom the way you present mathematics, grant access to mathematical situations, and position math challenges can impact your students’ math identity.

Equity is a word we’ve heard a lot in the past few years… and I’m not tired of it… because we’re just getting started. 

For way too long our classrooms, especially our math classrooms, have been places that reserved the challenge and complex thinking for the few that excelled at math. 

For too long our math classrooms have been about getting through the activities in the lessons and completing the problems instead of about understanding our students’ thinking and capitalizing on their strengths. 

For too long our math classrooms have supported the status quo… not making waves in what society has always told us, math has one answer and certain genders and races are just better at it. We’ve accepted that stereotype as our truth, our destiny. 

For too long we’ve looked at our students’ parents and forgiven them for not knowing how to help their student or the new math, without a second look at the valuable math experiences they hold. 

Holy shit teacher friends it’s TIME for more equity talk. We are just getting started. So, although you may be tired of hearing, I hope you’ll stick with me on this podcast and listen because I think you know, as much as I do, how important this work is.

Driscoll and his colleagues in 2016 wrote about equity in math saying… equity is giving access “to each learner with alternative ways to achieve, no matter the obstacles they face” and believing in each learner’s potential “to do challenging math reasoning and problem solving” 

So, what does that mean for us at this moment on this podcast? I think today’s conversation needs to break down what we’ve been doing, why we can’t do things that way anymore and what we can do instead.

Let’s pause to say equity work is often hard. Emotions come up. Be mindful of them and don’t avoid them. As Elana Aguilar (author of Coaching for Equity) says about when emotions come up in equity work, “I greet them. I’m getting curious & finding out that emotions are not that scary and that I can access them in a way that gives me strength, courage, and power.  There’s enough space in my mind, heart, and life for feelings, and there’s no way to avoid them if I want to build equitable schools.”

So let’s start identifying some of the things we’ve done and how we can do better…. 

• Reserving the challenge & the complex thinking. Sometimes we reserve it for the early finishers or the “high group”. Sometimes we say our remedial group just isn’t ready for that work or we give them a different (easier) version of the work.
  • Why is this a problem? Because all children have the right to participate in all the parts of our math lesson… including being challenged and supported. I believe teachers are doing this because they truly care about helping our students be successful… but what happens when we don’t allow our students to be challenged or think in complex ways because we’re not sure they’re ready and we’re afraid they’ll fail or struggle too much… What happens is they miss that opportunity. Their work gets simplified and time and time again they miss those opportunities to do complex thinking. And then, over time we realize our students aren’t achieving because they aren’t being taught the material that can help them achieve. 
  • We have to stop coming to our math learners with a deficit mindset. We have to see each child as having the potential to do the challenging, complex work of mathematics. We have to create learning spaces and instructional opportunities for every single child to participate in problem solving and developing math reasoning.
    • The best way I know how? Problem solving every day in Word Problem Workshop. One worthy, complex math task– time to launch & understand the problem, time to grapple with it independently, time to discuss it collaboratively. 
• Our instructional strategies are set up in centers or lessons with a focus on completing the problems, and filling the holes… we miss the opportunity to see our students’ thinking and see what they DO know.
  • Why is this a problem? When we maintain a traditional sense of success in the math classroom we are missing out on the important shift that has taken place in math research and instruction over the last 25 years. Effective math teaching calls for us to implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving, to facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse, to use and connect mathematical presentations, and support productive struggle of mathematics.
    Instead, when our class focuses on correct, fast, sit and fill in, do as I say we miss the opportunity to leverage our students’ mathematical strengths as a place to start our conversation. 
  • We have to see our students as mathematicians. Promoting participation and engagement in lessons in all sorts of ways. We have to show our students we believe they have good ideas and their ideas have a place in our math classroom… even if those ideas are different. We have to start looking for our students’ strengths and using them in our lessons as a starting place for new learning.
    • The best way I know how? Get to know your students’ thinking through truly listening. See their brilliance as it is, listen to their voice, look at their work, watch them work. 

• Why are we talking about equity so much in schools? Because for too long we’ve just accepted the stereotypes as fact. Math isn’t for everyone. Boys are better at math and science. Oh of course the asian kids are in the advanced class. These types of comments and beliefs have to end and it’s our job to disrupt them. We must disrupt the stereotypes of math, culture, family, gender that are present in our schools.
  • Why is this a problem? I think it’s obvious, but in case it’s not. Math intuition and math ability is not connected to genes, ancestry, race or ethnicity, or gender. Everyone is able to do math. And as professionals we have to not only believe that about our students, but also about ourselves, our colleagues and our students’ families. 
  • Our students’ families and our students’ background and experiences are valuable assets in the math classroom. We have to use these experiences to help our students see that math plays a big role in their lives, now and in the future. Our elementary students come to school full of life experiences– splitting sandwiches with their siblings fairly, counting, stacking, noticing, wondering, classifying… all before they step foot into our school.
  • As teachers we can either harness that wonder and excitement for math or we can spoil it. When fear and anxiety of getting the answers right or solving it the right way take over that confidence is gone. Through ambitious and effective math teaching practices we can help our students develop and continue to build positive math identity. 
  • The best way I know how to do this? Actively build a positive math culture in your school. Talk to your students about their math identity. Stay vigilant on how students talk about themselves as a mathematician. Find every little moment to work in a comment to promote their positive math identity. 

This is a topic I’m so passionate about because I’ve seen the power it has over students. From the 3rd grader I had who was years behind at the beginning of the year, but an expert arguer. Through our daily math discussions that often turned to arguments he blossomed in math. He looked forward to it, trying out new strategies only to come to the carpet to explain how he solved it. He used to cry when redirected, pouting and yelling…. To let me question him during grapple time… pushing and pushing him to clarify his argument and think deeper about math. He grew as a person, a math person. At the end of the year he exceeded his growth goal on the NWEA Map test and reached attainment for 3rd grade. What that taught him, and I was that effective teaching practices work, but most importantly we’re all math people and we all have something valuable to give. 

If you want more information on equity in math I suggest you check out Pamela Seda’s book Choosing to See: Af framework for equity in the math classroom. It is phenomenal  https://amzn.to/3MpjLjz 

 Also, in the book from NCTM called “Taking Action: Implementing Effective Math Teaching Practices” the authors offer 5 equity based practices to support math learning. https://amzn.to/3ZG7mul 

They are: 

1. Go deep with mathematics 
2. Leverage multiple mathematical competencies 
3. Affirm mathematics learning identities 
4. Challenge spaces of marginality 
5. Draw on multiple resources of knowledge 

As always, my DMs are open on Instagram. I love connecting with you each week about the podcast. Please hop over to instagram as you finish and tell me what’s resonating with you. What question are you left with or where are you hoping for more clarity. I’d love to chat.

Your Guide to Student Centered Math