DECOMPOSING THE PRACTICE
INEQUITABLE PATTERNS OF PRACTICE
DISCUSSION OBSERVATION TOOLS
Our project focuses on developing teachers’ skills with leading group discussions as defined below. Leading mathematics discussions requires teachers to flexibly respond to student contributions while tracking on a multitude of factors including who has had opportunities to share thinking, how ideas are being used by the class, and how students are viewed by their peers.
In a group discussion, the teacher and all of the students work on specific content together, using one another’s ideas as resources. The purposes of a discussion are to build collective knowledge and capability in relation to specific instructional goals and to allow students to practice listening, speaking, and interpreting, agreeing and disagreeing. The teacher and a wide range of students contribute orally, listen actively, and respond to and learn from others’ contributions.Teachers work to ensure students are positioned as competent among their peers, that patterns of interaction are respectful, and that the collective work of the group uses the strengths of and benefits each student.
– TeachingWorks, 2019
To support the development of equitable teaching, we use the following decomposition of the practice, developed by TeachingWorks. The decomposition allows for focus on specific parts of the work of teaching with attention to equity.
