Departmentalized and Tracked: A Case Study of an Elementary Math Specialist (Poster 1)

• In Event: The Work of Elementary Mathematics Specialists: Findings From the STEAM Project

Abstract

Purpose: This poster describes the case of Keri, a departmentalized EMS who taught math to fifth grade students who were grouped (tracked) based on their test scores. She referred to her four classes using colors, from “green” (highest) to “red” (lowest). Observations of instruction revealed the use of different teaching approaches, including practices that did not align with her espoused beliefs. Specifically, her green class was student-centered with opportunities for discussion about mathematical relationships, while her low classes predominately focused on procedures using questioning that followed an Initiate-Respond-Evaluate (IRE) pattern (Mehan, 1979). Based on this context, we sought to investigate the following: (1) What do Keri’s explanations for her instructional decisions across her four classes reveal about the way she interprets and prioritizes her professional obligations? (2) How are these obligations used to justify different instructional approaches across her classes?

Theoretical Framework. Our analysis is rooted in the practical rationality framework (Herbst & Chazan, 2011; 2012), which argues that teachers’ instructional decisions can be justified based on four possible obligations: the obligation to serve as a representative of the mathematics discipline; the obligation to students as individuals; the obligation to the class as a community; and the obligation to the teaching institution. This framework acknowledges that teachers do not work in isolation, but rather teach within environments that have stakeholders at different levels (students, class, school, discipline) that can each influence teachers’ actions to varying degrees.

Methods. We used case study methodology (Yin, 2014) to understand Keri’s instructional decisions within her teaching context. Data consisted of five semi-structured interviews, conducted across one school year. We coded interview excerpts where Keri discussed specific teaching actions across her four classes for thee indicators of obligation: the presence of a justification (e.g., so, because); the presence of evaluative statements (e.g., “it was better for students to…“); and the use of modal modifiers (e.g., “will” versus “probably”) to indicate the degree of obligation (Webel & Platt, 2015). Collectively, these factors provided insight into the perceived obligations underlying Keri’s instructional decisions.

Results. Keri’s instructional decisions were primarily attributed to her sense of obligation to meeting the content knowledge needs of individual students. Across the interviews, Keri spoke of the need for students in the green class to be challenged and the need for students in her red class to be supported. This perspective influenced how she planned for her classes. For example, she described not scaffolding a task in the green class “because I think that they can persevere, they can deduce, they can figure that out on their own.” In contrast, she justified not incorporating “higher-level problems” into her lower classes “because I didn’t feel like I wanted to confuse them.” Collectively, many of Keri’s actions were driven by an obligation to deliver instruction that matched the perceived needs of students. By prioritizing the content knowledge needs of students over other obligations, Keri provided inequitable instruction to her classes that did not adequately consider the strengths and identities of every student (Aguirre et al., 2013).

Author

• Kimberly Conner, University of Northern Iowa