When a Visit to the Mall Counts as a Community Walk: Learning From Justification Narratives

• In Event: Community Mathematics Explorations 2.0: Expanding on the Work of TEACH Math

Abstract

For the past three years we have used a modified version of the community walk described in the CME instructional module developed by the TEACH Math group. Over that period, we have often found rich examples of PT visiting locations that have pushed them toward the unfamiliar and challenged their prior notions of who does math and where they do it. Yet inevitably, almost every semester we have a group of PT who do not take up the task as intended and, instead, choose the familiar. Despite several aspects of the assignment that endeavor to dissuade this, we have PT visit the mall, coffee shops, or the student union and then justify why these locations were appropriate places to ‘look for math in their students’ communities.’ In order to identify other ways to push back against some PT inclination to stick to the familiar we conducted a narrative analysis of assignments to identify the ‘justification narratives’ they constructed. These justification narratives provide insight into how mathematics teacher educators can prevent and respond to PT resistance to getting out of their comfort zone.

Much has been written about PTs’ (and practicing teachers’) dispositions toward equity and how that is reflected in their mathematics assignments or classrooms (Author 2008, 2010; Foote et al., 2013). While these dispositions certainly shape the choices PT make in selecting a site for a community walk, we are interested in the narrative they construct to justify their exploration of their choice. Using data from three methods courses, we analyzed 52 PT powerpoint presentations, written reflections, and accompanying lesson plans to identify the ‘justification narratives’ used when explaining their choice for location of the community walk. Justification narratives, an analytic tool used in the field of ethics and law (e.g. Nelson, 2014), provided a way for us to identify common features of PT’ explanations for their choice of location.

In this first round of analysis, we found that the 16 PT who chose to go to familiar locations provided longer and more detailed justification narratives than those who chose the unfamiliar. In an effort to connect these justification narratives to a more holistic view of the PT, we constructed narratives from a broader set of data from those 16 PT to examine temporality, sociality, and place (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006). These “commonplaces of narrative inquiry” (p. 479) enabled us to analyze: PT narratives over the course of the semester; how our feedback may (or not) have had an impact on the narrative; and the physical places that narratives changed. As we envision our PT’ decisions as ones happening in a particular time, incorporating interactions with use and others, and occurring within various physical boundaries, we see the community walk assignment as part of a process of learning. We found that choosing the familiar was not always an indication of resistance to identifying and building on Students Multiple Mathematical Knowledge Bases (Turner et al., 2012); however, recognizing justification narratives can be a signal that we need to push back.

Authors

• Alisa Belliston, Brigham Young University

• Anita A. Wager, Vanderbilt University