Instructional Practices That Support Equity and Access in Mathematics Classrooms: A Descriptive Analysis

• In Event: Equity-Focused Mathematics Instruction: What We Can Learn From Classroom Observational Systems

Abstract

The Equity Rubrics (blinded) are a set of classroom observation rubrics developed to capture practices aimed to support marginalized students in gaining access and equitably participating in rigorous math activity (Authors, 2019). Aligned with the dominant axis of Gutiérrez’s (2012) framework, the Equity Rubrics highlight instructional practices that support typically underserved students without decreasing rigor by making implicit rules of “the game” of classroom mathematics more explicit. These rubrics highlight practices that frame students as sensemakers (Fitzgerald and Palincsar, 2019), in that they emphasize the “why” behind all of the processes (mathematical and social) involved in classroom mathematics. We focus on three practices that we hypothesize are most influential in supporting student sensemaking: Positioning Students as Competent, Social Coaching, and Reactively Supporting a Nurturing Environment.

Our team is currently collecting evidence related to the validity and reliability of the Equity Rubrics, drawing on data from two prior large-scale school studies of instructional improvement. One prior study involved 3rd-5th grade classrooms, and the second involved 6th-8th grade classrooms. For this study, we use final scores for videos that were scored as part of the training reliability phase. Two mathematics education researchers (including the lead developer) scored each video and then met to determine final scores. The focal subsample of videos for this study included 21 lessons that reflected a range in quality of enacted mathematics instruction. The rubrics specify instructional practices with descriptors across five scale points, ranging from 0 to 4. Anchoring questions help to orient raters to key dimensions in each of the rubrics (Table 1). For this analysis, we focus on descriptive statistics.

Table 1 shows the rubric means, standard deviations, and frequency counts across the 21 lessons included in the subsample. The median score for teachers in this sample was a 2 on the positioning rubric. This means that teachers demonstrated the ability to position students as competent with affirmations specifying what the student did that was productive, but they often did not provide rationales for why they valued what it was students were doing. The median score on the social coaching rubric was a 3, indicating that teachers tended to provide concrete suggestions related to students’ social participation, but they rarely provided rationales to accompany those suggestions. The scores on the Reactive rubric were quite low with the median and modal score of 1. This means that teachers tended to respond superficially without attempting to understand why students were off task.

The Equity Rubrics attend to differences between lessons in teachers’ use of instructional practices that promote equity. There do not appear to be ceiling effects on the rubrics, with considerable room for teacher development. One of the key purposes of the rubrics is to support teacher development with concrete descriptions of equitable teaching practices. For example, the importance of providing rationales is highlighted by both the Positioning and Social Coaching rubrics. This is consistent with an approach that treats students as sensemakers, which is a central principle underlying the Equity Rubrics.

Authors

• Anne Garrison Wilhelm, Southern Methodist University

• Elizabeth Lynn Adams, Southern Methodist University

• Jonee Wilson, North Carolina State University

• Anna Thorp, North Carolina State University

• Tiffini Pruitt-Britton, Southern Methodist University

• Natalia Yanez Castillo, North Carolina State University

• Danielle Moloney, North Carolina State University