Coach’s Perspective: How One Mathematics Coach Leverages Facilitation Moves to Center Equity in Coaching Conversations

• In Event: Users and Uses: Multiple Perspectives on a Mathematics Education Classroom Observation Instrument

Abstract

Purpose
Mathematics coaches can support teachers to shift toward more equitable teaching through focused conversations using structured routines and rubric-based video analysis of instruction (Kraft & Hill, 2020). Using AR as the lens for conversation can support teachers to consider issues of equity. However, equity is often ambiguously defined, and some teachers may avoid certain conversations related to equity (e.g., demonstrate race-evasiveness; Annamma et al., 2015). The AR rubrics provide opportunities for coaches to surface equity. In this study, I focus on how one coach enacted these conversations and surfaced issues of equity using AR rubrics, asking: 1) How do educators conceptualize equity in the context of coaching conversations? 2) How does the coach engage teachers in discussing issues of equity in coaching conversations?

Perspectives
Equity can be conceptualized in multiple ways, with a focus on inputs, processes, or outcomes (e.g., Albright et al., 2019; Bulkley, 2013; Guiton & Oakes, 1995). In mathematics education, these conceptions can center dominant (e.g., access and achievement) or critical (e.g., identity and power) dimensions (Gutiérrez, 2012). How educators frame equity in the context of analyzing instruction can provide insights into what practices they choose to focus on. How coaches use AR and facilitate these conversations may orient teachers toward particular conceptions of equity. Facilitation moves in professional learning (PL) can maintain focus, create and maintain structures or community, or promote particular stances (Van Es et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2011). Examining coaches’ equity-related discussion facilitation provides insights into supporting teachers’ engagement with explicitly equity-oriented practices.

Data and Methods
Participants include one middle school mathematics coach and three teachers she supported in a large urban school district. The coach and teachers participated in a coaching model using AR rubrics. Data sources include recordings of 11 coaching conversations and eight interviews (two per participant). To understand conceptualizations of equity, I broke coaching conversations into episodes (Zhang et al., 2011) and coded episodes for the ways in which equity was conceptualized. To identify facilitation moves, I relied on a priori and open coding of transcripts and wrote analytic memos, using these to develop themes and identify specific facilitation strategies in the context of the AR rubric discussed.

Findings
While both critical and dominant perspectives of equity (Gutiérrez; 2012) surfaced across coaching conversations, participants more often used dominant conceptions of equity, despite AR rubrics emphasizing identity and power. Coaching conversations focused primarily on equitable processes (e.g., teachers’ pedagogical actions). Coach facilitation moves to surface equity included sharing information, sharing self-reflections, using “we” language to include herself in the learning process, and expressing enthusiasm about equity-oriented work. Notably, these facilitation moves mirrored two AR practices that teachers considered in their own instruction.

Significance
While it is challenging to support teachers to enact equitable instruction, rubrics that reflect equitable teaching practices are one way coaches can support teachers to analyze instruction along equity-oriented dimensions. Results build our understanding of equity-focused PL facilitation. However, more support may be needed for coaches to surface critical conceptions.

Author

• Samantha Akridge, University of Delaware