Equitable Mathematics Teaching
For my forthcoming book, I reviewed literature on equitable mathematics teaching and extracted the following four principles. Let me know what you think.
1. Learning is not the same as achievement.
Although learning and achievement are related, they are not the same. Learning happens when students deepen their understanding of content. Achievement reflects how they progress through school.
2. Achievement gaps often reflect gaps in opportunities to learn.
Different educational outcomes manifest themselves as disparate levels of achievement on standardized tests, but these measures erase the radically different opportunities for learning that exist within and across schools.
3. All students can be pushed to learn mathematics more deeply.
In equitable classrooms, all students need to have opportunities to learn meaningful mathematics, no matter their prior level of achievement. Too often, classes focus on work completion and not on sense making, to the detriment of students across achievement levels.
4. Students need to see them selves in mathematics.
In general, children do not see themselves as mathematicians in the same way that they might view themselves as writers, artists, or athletes. This affective experience influences the ways that students’ identities adhere (or don’t adhere) to the content, making students less likely to persist in the subject, whether on a hard problem or through the longer time span of the curriculum.
