Webinar Series
Advancing Equity: What Do Math Discussions Have to Do With It?
MƒA teachers can register for this event on the Small-World Network.
Date+Time
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The MƒA Equity Webinars Series invites nationally recognized educators to share ideas that support equity within STEM. Following an interactive presentation by the speaker, Master Teachers have the opportunity to discuss how these ideas might be applied in their own school environments in small groups. Teachers from MƒA, other Master Teacher programs, and people interested in learning more about MƒA are invited to attend.
Have you ever wondered how the dynamics of class discussions affect student participation and recognition? Leading a group discussion in mathematics requires teachers to make ongoing judgments about how to support the mathematical work of the class while responding to students, their ideas, and the dynamics of the classroom.
The choices they make about whose ideas are taken up and how they are used can reproduce or disrupt inequities in participation and in who is recognized as mathematically capable. In this webinar, Dr. Deborah Loewenberg Ball and Dr. Darrius Robinson examine a decomposition of the practice of leading a group discussion, identify key places where teachers must exercise professional discretion and responsiveness, and consider how those discretionary spaces can be leveraged to advance equity in mathematics classrooms.
They use the flourishing of Black learners as a focal case for examining how teachers can leverage discretionary spaces in group discussions to create more equitable opportunities for students to contribute their mathematical thinking and have their ideas matter to the mathematical work of the class.
This webinar is best for mathematics teachers, but all educators interested in equitable teaching practices are welcome.
Dr. Deborah Loewenberg Ball is the Jessie Jean Storey-Fry Distinguished University Professor of Education at the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan and the director of TeachingWorks. She taught elementary school for more than 15 years and continues to teach children every summer. Loewenberg Ball’s research focuses on the practice of teaching, using elementary mathematics as a critical context for investigating the challenges of helping children develop understanding and agency, work collectively, and leverage the power of teaching to disrupt patterns of injustice.
Dr. Darrius Robinson is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan Marsal Family School of Education, a mathematics teacher educator, and an experienced elementary mathematics teacher. He studies the work of teaching to support the development of productive mathematics identities, with a particular focus on positioning Black learners as competent knowers and doers of mathematics.