Examining Interpersonal Attunement in Collaborative Mathematics Activity: Toward Collective Emancipation

• In Event: Challenging Dominant Structures in Mentoring, Math, Data, and Making

Abstract

A theory of collective emancipation that views learners as ethical beings with responsibilities to others has struggled to emerge in practice, especially within mathematics education. The field’s preferred instructional approach may be undermining the emancipatory potential of collaborative problem solving by prioritizing learner independence and knowledge ownership. Prior analysis of mathematics activity in Math Teachers’ Circles (MTCs) suggests a more freeform approach affords participants greater responsibility for the shared experience, which establishes favorable conditions for interpersonal attunement (togethering) and thus collective emancipation. Here, we strengthen this claim by examining an episode of noticing and inclusion in a MTC group’s problem-solving activity. Such opportunities for interpersonal attunement, we contend, may be elusive in highly structured and orchestrated learning spaces.

Authors

• Ian Parker Renga, University of Southern Maine

• Frederick A. Peck, University of Montana - Missoula