20th March 2024
Marta Kobiela, McGill University, Canada
Title of the talk:
Examining the Role of the Mathematics Teacher Educator in Supporting Responsive Teaching
Abstract:
Over the past several decades, mathematics education research has shown the promise of classroom discourse communities to support students’ mathematical learning. However, orchestrating whole class discussions can be challenging, as it requires responsive teaching. When teaching responsively, teachers question and respond to students in ways that position their contributions as valued, allow for discussion and debate, and support collective sense-making.
In this talk, I describe our research efforts to understand the role of mathematics teacher educators in supporting prospective elementary teachers to learn to teach responsively in mathematics. In our work, we have focused on the context of rehearsals (Lampert et al., 2013) as a site for prospective teachers to learn responsive teaching. Rehearsals are simulations in which a teacher practices teaching a lesson while their peers act as students. The mathematics teacher educator serves as a coach who pauses the rehearsal to provide feedback and encourage collective reflection about teaching. Drawing upon results from three different studies, I will share a developing framework to characterize the multiple dimensions and challenges of the mathematics teacher’s role as this coach.
Lampert, M., Franke, M. L., Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H., Turrou, A.C., Beasley, H.,…& Crowe, K. (2013). Keeping it complex: Using rehearsal to support novice teacher learning of Ambitious Teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 226-243.