Reflecting the World: A Guide to Incorporating Equity in Mathematics Teacher Education is a guide for mathematics teacher educators interested in incorporating equity concerns into their teaching. The book draws on the authors’ research and experience integrating issues of equity, diversity, and social justice into their work as mathematics teacher educators of preservice and inservice preK?9 teachers. Reflecting the World includes both a framework for integrating issues of equity into mathematics teacher education courses and professional development and example lessons. The lessons are organized by content area and include guidance for using them effectively. Elementary and middle grades pre?service teachers are often uncomfortable with mathematics, uncertain about their ability to teach it, and unsure of how it connects to the real world. For many preservice teachers a focus on the real world—and in particular on issues of equity, diversity, and social justice—is more engaging than their past experiences with mathematics and can help lessen their mathematical anxieties. Reflecting the World will assist teacher educators in designing and teaching mathematics content and methods courses in ways that support future teachers to see the relevance of mathematics to our world and in becoming critical, questioning citizens in an increasingly mathematical world. The book provides a set of tools for helping future teachers connect mathematics to the lives, interests, and political realities of an increasingly diverse student body, and in doing so it provides a meaningful answer to the question, “when will I ever use this?”

Mathematics teacher education has a critical role to play in preparing teachers to put at center stage goals to support equity in mathematics education and to diversify student interest and participation in mathematics. These goals must also resonate with broader public interest goals to improve educational and social conditions both in the U.S. and abroad. The Mathematics Teacher Education in the Public Interest book aims to support mathematics teacher educators to prepare teachers with new knowledge and skills to support all students to learn mathematics and to become informed, engaged, and critical citizens within their community, nation, and world. While internationally there is considerable interest among mathematics educators in issues of equity and social justice, the literature on mathematics teacher education for equity and social justice thus far has been very limited.The book provides theoretical discussions on the need for equity and social justice emphases in mathematics teacher education, as well as practical examples from mathematics teacher educators, documenting their own professional efforts to center practices on equity and social justice. Section emphases include critical perspectives on mathematics teacher education, the use of equity and social justice-themed activities in mathematics teacher preparation courses, and issues of identity and community and cultural contexts in mathematics teacher education. In addition syntheses of major ideas of the book are offered by experienced researchers.

This book builds on the Teachers Empowered to Advance Change in Mathematics (TEACH Math) project, which was an initiative that sought to develop a new generation of preK-8 mathematics teachers to connect mathematics, children’s mathematical thinking, and community and family knowledge in mathematics instruction – or what we have come to call children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases in mathematics instruction, with an explicit focus on equity. Much of the work involved in the TEACH Math project included the development of three instructional modules for preK-8 mathematics methods courses to support the project’s goals. These activities were used and refined over eight semesters, and in Fall 2014 shared at a dissemination conference with other mathematics teacher educators from a variety of universities across the United States. Chapter contributions represent diverse program and geographical contexts and teach prospective and practicing teachers from a variety of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, in particular providing accounts of supports, challenges, and tensions in implementing equity-based mathematics teacher education. The chapters supply rich evidence and illustrative examples of how other mathematics teacher educators and professional developers might make the modules work for their unique practices, courses, workshops, and prospective teachers/teachers. It promises to be an important resource for offering guidance and examples to those working with prospective teachers of mathematics who want to create positive, culturally responsive, and equity-based mathematics experiences for our nation’s youth.

The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) in its 2015 position paper on Equity in Mathematics Teacher Education provides a list of actions for mathematics teacher educators (MTE’s) to help them develop and implement equitable practices. The position paper states it is critical that mathematics teacher educators: “Model equity?based pedagogy that emphasizes rich and rigorous mathematics; elicit and build on children’s and young adults’ mathematical thinking; connect to P?12 students’ cultural/linguistic knowledge and backgrounds as well as individual interests; facilitate mathematical discourse; minimize status issues by expanding broader participation and engagement where varied mathematical strengths are valued; and promote positive mathematical identity and agency (p. 2)”. Cases for Mathematics Teacher Educators: Facilitating Conversations about Inequities in Mathematics Classrooms provides an excellent resource to start conversations describing the enactment of these actions. The book is organized into three main sections: (1) Conversations About Inequities in Mathematics Methods Courses, (2) Conversations About Inequities in Mathematics Content Courses, and (3) Conversations about Inequities in Graduate and Professional Development Contexts. Across these sections there are 19 cases and 57 corresponding commentaries focused on dilemmas that arise when mathematics teacher educators foreground equity in their work. This book of cases provides a needed resource for MTEs to engage prospective teachers, practicing teachers, and future teacher educators in discussions about inequities, privilege, and oppression in society, in schools, and in the mathematics classroom. It is the product of the thinking and experiences of 87 authors who are committed to the improvement of mathematics teacher education.

In this book, nationally renowned scholars join classroom teachers to share equity-oriented approaches that have been successful with urban high school mathematics students. Compiling for the first time major research findings and practitioner experiences from Railside High School, the volume describes the evolution of a fundamentally different conception of learners and teaching. The chapters bring together research and reflection on teacher collaboration and professional community, student outcomes and mathematics classroom culture, reform curricula and pedagogy, and ongoing teacher development. Mathematics for Equity will be invaluable reading for teachers, schools, and districts interested in maintaining a focus on equity and improving student learning while making sense of the new demands of the Common Core State Standards. Book Features: Core principles of an equity-centered mathematics program. Examples of how to focus and organize the collaborative work of a math department to develop a shared pedagogy. Student experiences with an equity pedagogy that focuses on building perseverance, flexibility in thinking, and deep conceptual understanding. Connections between reconceptualizing learners and teaching, and achieving deep mathematics learning and equitable outcomes. Contributors include: Jo Boaler, Ilana Seidel Horn, Judith Warren Little, and Rachel Lotan. “Mathematics for Equity provides a kaleidoscopic view, in the voices of teachers, researchers, and students themselves, of one of the nation’s most ambitious and successful attempts at teaching mathematics for equity. It shows what it takes to create a climate that supports students and teachers in engaging in meaningful mathematical activity—and, alas, how vulnerable such environments are to the wrong kinds of ‘accountability.’ Read it and learn.” —Alan H. Schoenfeld, University of California at Berkeley “Want to fix what's wrong with mathematics instruction in your school? Read this book with your colleagues and do what it inspires you to do. Written by the brave teachers and former students who did it, as well as researchers.” —Phil Daro, writing team, Common Core Standards, Strategic Education Research Partnership

The use of academic discourse in today’s educational environment has the potential to improve education for students from all backgrounds. To achieve this, further study on the best practices, challenges, and future opportunities is required. Cultivating Critical Discourse in the Classroom shares the benefits of empowering and engaging students at all levels of education through the use of academic discourse. The book also provides insights for educators to become more knowledgeable, and therefore better equipped, to create spaces through discourse where cultural competence is cultivated. Covering key topics such as identity, linguistics, student autonomy, and language, this premier reference source is ideal for administrators, policymakers, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.