Preparing Elementary Teachers to Support Students With Disabilities in Mathematics
In Event: Causal Evidence to Support the Development of an Equitable and Effective Teacher Workforce
Abstract
Objective
A persistent, and often ignored, social justice issue in education is ensuring equitable and just outcomes for students with disabilities (SWDs), particularly those who are multiply marginalized. Because nearly 15% of the K-12 student population are identified as having documented disabilities, and because most students with disabilities receive their primary instruction in general education, one would assume that supporting SWDs would be a central focus of general education teacher preparation. However, few general educators receive more than a single course on how to support students with disabilities (Blanton et al., 2018; National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2019),
Perspective
The goal of this study was to develop and test the impact of learning materials that simultaneously attend to building preservice teachers’ candidates’ knowledge of SWDs, as well as their skills using a high-leverage practice, metacognitive modeling in elementary mathematics. We framed these learning modules using an asset-based perspective of disability that acknowledges its intersectional relationship with other identity markers (Pugach et al., 2021).
We built a two-week, interactive learning course following the pedagogies of practice framework, where candidates engaged with “representations” or examples of metacognitive modeling, before “approximating” modeling in mixed-reality simulation sessions with coaching support (Grossman et al., 2009). Students in the control condition received the same content, but in a format more typical in teacher education (i.e., reading articles and answering reflection questions).
Methods and Data
The study was conducted across two universities during the 2022-2023 academic year. Candidates were randomly assigned to either the treatment condition (N=76) or control condition (N=73). See Table 1 for a summary of sample distribution across conditions and sites.
Our measurement approach captures a range of outcomes, including candidate self-efficacy and instructional quality. Self-efficacy for teaching SWDs was measured using a validated scale (Dawson & Scott, 2013). For instructional quality, we used both proximal outcomes (i.e., standardized performance tasks developed by the research team) and distal outcomes (i.e., Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI; Hill et al., 2008) and Classroom Observations of Student Teacher Interactions (COSTI; Doabler et al., 2015). To account for pretreatment differences across conditions, we checked for balance on candidate covariates (see Table 2).
Results
Analyses will be completed in Summer 2023. We provide preliminary analyses of performance task outcomes from the Fall 2022 cohort (N=62). Using models that control for baseline simulation performance and randomization blocks, we find the intervention effects of our materials on metacognitive modeling (as measured in performance tasks) are positive and appear large. See Table 3.
Scholarly significance
Without our intervention materials, these candidates would have no exposure to methods known to support SWDs in mathematics. This study provides an important proof of concept for modularizing and integrating new content into existing methods coursework, opening up many new avenues for enhancing supports for students often ignored in general education teacher preparation. Additionally, our findings suggest the power of practice and coaching in teacher education coursework. Finally, the use of a multi-site experimental design – while common in other contexts – is still rare in teacher education.