The Developing Equitable Discussion Practices project, focused on teachers as learners of such practices, examines important questions about how to design professional development for practicing elementary teachers in ways that improve teachers’ skills with leading mathematics discussions while attending to and disrupting patterns of inequity that are often amplified during class discussions.
Decompositions of practice allow us to build a common language around the work that teachers do to enact teaching practice. We use a specific decomposition of leading a group discussion to both build common language and organize our professional learning.
Inequitable Patterns of Practice
Patterns of interactions, including questioning, honoring of student ideas, behavior management, and more, can be a source of inequity in classrooms. Our project seeks to explicitly name these patterns and work to disrupt them.
Discussion Observation Tools
Discussion observation tools enable coaches to notice teachers’ skills in carrying out the work of leading a discussion and support teachers in analyzing video records of their discussions for the purposes of improving instruction. Observation tools are not meant to evaluate teaching practice; instead, they provide information that can be used to support individualized learning.
Our research investigates the impact of professional learning focused on leading group discussions on teachers’ teaching practice as well as teachers’ perceptions of their learning and practice.
