Collaborative Research: Attaining Excellence in Secondary Mathematics Clinical Experiences with a Lens on Equity

Auburn University, Auburn AL

Investigators

Abstract

An aim of many mathematics teacher education programs is to produce teachers who can use teaching practices that enable all secondary students to reason with and make sense of mathematics. Clinical experiences enable teacher candidates to teach, observe other teachers, and collaborate with mentor teachers, thus applying what they learned from their coursework. In fact, clinical experiences have been cited as more influential on long-term teaching practices than coursework. This project will study how different types of clinical experiences affect preservice teachers' implementation of equitable teaching practices. A consortium of 24 universities and their school partners will conduct the study, setting the stage for evaluation of different clinical experiences across multiple institutions. Members of this consortium are already engaged in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' (APLU's) Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership (MTE-P). The MTE-P will use a networked improvement community (NIC) design to develop clinical experiences that build candidate teachers' skills in equitable teaching strategies, with the goal of increasing the success of secondary school students in meeting college- and career-ready standards in math. The project will design and study mechanisms to aid in the implementation of the following alternative models: 1) methods courses in which mentor teachers and teacher candidates experience common learning opportunities; 2) the paired placement model, in which two prospective teachers are paired with a single mentor teacher, allowing the mentor teacher to serve as coach and mentor for the two preservice teachers and the preservice teachers to give each other feedback and support; and 3) co-planning and co-teaching, which has been found to help teacher candidates gain greater pedagogical content knowledge and knowledge of students through collaboration and communication between teacher candidates and mentor teachers who work together to plan, implement, and assess instruction. Data will be collected to guide the continued improvement of the models following the NIC design and to determine the effectiveness of the different clinical models. The use of an NIC design will accelerate understanding of the alternative models for clinical experiences that promote candidates' craft of teaching and the capacity of mentors and university supervisors to support those experiences, as the models are refined using continuous improvement cycles. Testing the models across a range of institutions will increase understanding of adaptations needed to support local contexts. The three models will be disseminated to APLU's broader membership through MTE-P's national network of 90 universities and their K-12 partners who have the common goal of transforming secondary mathematics teacher preparation. The Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program is providing co-funding for this project in recognition of its alignment with the broader teacher preparation goals of the Noyce effort.