High school mathematics texts construction of statistics practices

IntroductionA robust understanding of statistics has become crucial in our data centric societies. In the school setting the teaching of statistics is situated within the mathematics curriculum in the U.S. However, many mathematics teachers often have little to no past experiences with statistics before teaching it. Given such circumstances, textbooks likely play a strong role influencing the statistics curriculum teachers enact for students. In this study, I investigate how the discourse of two common high school textbook series form what the actions are for doing statistics.MethodsFor this study I used a Foucauldian discourse analysis to inductively analyze the texts for the actions they create.ResultsOne of the main results of the study was that the actions are very routinized/algorithmic in nature. Furthermore, most actions were associated with analyzing data. I also contrast the findings of the analysis to the discourse of the field of statistics education, namely through the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education, which highlighted some significant absences including statistical questions to drive investigation and discussion of collecting data.DiscussionThe findings have implications for teacher education in terms of topics to focus teachers’ attention on and to help provide them further support with teaching to their students

Supporting and Retaining Early Career Mathematics Teachers Using an Online Community of Practice

This study reports on efforts over several years to design and implement a yearlong intervention intended to support secondary mathematics teachers in their early years of teaching. The intervention is designed to retain early career mathematics teachers in the professions by engaging them in the development of meaningful professional relationships with a school-based mentors, and by creating an online community of practice for support with other professionals. The intervention itself consists of early career teachers and their mentors participating in monthly professional learning activities such as online meetings, videoconferencing panels with experts, and collaborative reading and discussing timely, purposeful, and relevant content. The intervention is designed to not over burden the participants and to be feasible for national implementation with little to no funding. This article presents the purpose, design, and implementations of the intervention, as well as a discussion of challenges faced and potential next steps and future directions for similar work

Supporting and Retaining Early Career Mathematics Teachers Using an Online Community of Practice

This study reports on efforts over several years to design and implement a yearlong intervention intended to support secondary mathematics teachers in their early years of teaching. The intervention is designed to retain early career mathematics teachers in the professions by engaging them in the development of meaningful professional relationships with a school-based mentors, and by creating an online community of practice for support with other professionals. The intervention itself consists of early career teachers and their mentors participating in monthly professional learning activities such as online meetings, videoconferencing panels with experts, and collaborative reading and discussing timely, purposeful, and relevant content. The intervention is designed to not over burden the participants and to be feasible for national implementation with little to no funding. This article presents the purpose, design, and implementations of the intervention, as well as a discussion of challenges faced and potential next steps and future directions for similar work

THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTERVENTION TO SUPPORT AND RETAIN EARLY CAREER MATHEMATICS TEACHERS

This study reports on efforts over several years to design and implement a yearlong intervention intended to support secondary mathematics teachers in their early years of teaching. The intervention is designed to support these teachers’ development of meaningful professional relationships with a school-based mentor and to create an online community of practice for support with other professionals. The intervention itself consists of early career teachers and their mentors participating in monthly professional development sessions such as online meetings, Zoom panels with experts, and collaboratively reading and discussing timely, purposeful, and relevant content. The intervention is designed to not over burden the participants and to be feasible for national implementation with little funding. The goal of the intervention is to try to retain secondary mathematics teachers in the profession by providing them with meaningful and targeted support Half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and this rate is highest for mathematics positions in high poverty schools (Fantilli & McDougall, 2009; Goldring et al., 2014). Furthermore, half of all current teachers in the U.S. retiring in the next five years (Foster, 2010), enrollment in teacher preparation programs declining, and teacher turnover is costing America $7.3 billion annually (National Math + Science Initiative, 2013), which represents a crisis for public education in the U.S. These conditions lead to classrooms staffed with underprepared/unqualified teachers, which profoundly affects the mathematical preparation of students in high school, college, and beyond. Experts agree that addressing the mathematics-teaching crisis meaningfully will require building a more cohesive system of teacher preparation, support, and development (Mehta, TheisenHomer, Braslow, & Lopatin 2015). The purpose of this study is to report on the design and implementation of a cost effective, easily replicable intervention for early career secondary mathematics teachers with the goal of positively impacting teacher retention. We also present lessons learned over two years of implementing the intervention and provide suggestions for future research

Supporting and Retaining Early Career Mathematics Teachers Using an Online Community of Practice

This study reports on efforts over several years to design and implement a yearlong intervention intended to support secondary mathematics teachers in their early years of teaching. The intervention is designed to retain early career mathematics teachers in the professions by engaging them in the development of meaningful professional relationships with a school-based mentors, and  by creating an online community of practice for support with other professionals. The intervention itself consists of early career teachers and their mentors participating in monthly professional learning activities such as online meetings, videoconferencing panels with experts, and collaborative reading and discussing timely, purposeful, and relevant content. The intervention is designed to not over burden the participants and to be feasible for national implementation with little to no funding. This article presents the purpose, design, and implementations of the intervention, as well as a discussion of challenges faced and potential next steps and future directions for similar work.

How Four White MTEs Attempted to Acknowledge, Act, and Hold Ourselves Accountable for Incorporating Antiracism Into Graduate Courses for Teachers

In this paper, we (four white Mathematics Teacher Educators) present a cycle of acknowledgement, action, and accountability where we grapple collectively with how to support mathematics teachers in interrogating characteristics of white supremacy culture. In putting this lens on our course design, we realized the need to interrogate our own practices as mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) and more personally embark on self-work as we unlearn racist, yet culturally normative, practices. In that vein, we discuss our shared tensions, doubts, and concerns, and how we interrogated our own teaching practices, which we continue to do in an ongoing process

Continue Growth of Teaching and Learning in Mathematics Education for Elementary Prospective Teachers

A group of mathematics education faculty has been communicating about issues and concerns in their teaching of mathematics content courses for elementary prospective teachers (ePTs) since 2018. Their communication and related literature review helped them become aware of the variability among ePTs preparation programs across the U.S., and further pointed them to several future research directions. They believe peer communication is an effective means for improving scholarship of teaching and learning and would like to share their discussions and growth at the conference