Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2759
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Item EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF A COMPUTATIONAL THINKING MODULE FOR MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE METHODS COURSES(2024) Moon, Peter; Walkoe, Janet; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Computational thinking (CT) has great potential for enhancing mathematics and science lessons in K-12 education. Numerous studies demonstrate that under the right circumstances, CT integration in math and science can improve student learning and promote deeper understanding. However, teacher education currently does not include preparation for using CT in the classroom on a widespread scale. Instead, most current CT courses or professional development (PD) opportunities for teachers are taught by a local CT researcher who can only reach a limited number of teachers. This qualitative three-article dissertation summarizes the development, implementation, and effects of a five-lesson module on CT designed to be integrated within a math & science methods course or a similar course for teachers. The goal of this module is to provide learning about CT within most teacher education programs without substantially affecting that program’s requirements for teachers (i.e., adding a new course). In Study 1, “Module Implementation in a Mathematics and Science Methods Course,” I describe the module activities, the CT knowledge of the teacher candidates who participated in the study, and how that knowledge evolved. I argue that participants’ understanding of CT expanded from a limited scope to a wide variety of practices and skills, and that the experience-first design helped them build knowledge of CT as distinct from knowledge of their discipline. In Study 2, “Use of CT Knowledge as Classroom Teachers,” I discuss sets of interviews with two teachers who had previously participated in the CT module in different years, analyzing commonalities and differences in their organization and use of CT knowledge. I argue that the Preparation for Future Learning (PFL) (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999) perspective is particularly important when considering the impact of the CT module. In Study 3, “A Faculty Workshop on CT Implementation with Mathematics and Science Methods Courses,” I discuss the effects of a summer workshop with methods instructors from universities throughout Maryland, noting different perspectives around what “counts” as a CT activity, and two implementation profiles for CT that instructors used that fall. I argue that the PFL perspective is important to consider for methods instructors’ CT integration.Item This is the Remix: A Math Teacher's Reflective Journey Through Fine-Tuning Her Culturally Relevant Teaching(2023) Ivy, Kelly Kristina; Brantlinger, Andrew M.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While many educational institutions have updated their strategic plans mandating culturally responsive teaching (CRT) or culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), mathematics teachers are reluctant to embrace CRT/CRP, approaching the teaching and learning of mathematics from deficit paradigms that reflect the pedagogy of poverty. Culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) is necessary because it promises to promote meaningfulness for, accessibility to, and high levels of engagement with school mathematics for Black, Latinx, and other historically marginalized students. However, to date, there have been numerous theoretical arguments for, but few empirical examples of CRMT, and, as a result, many mathematics teachers are uncomfortable employing CRMT. This qualitative case study examines how an experienced and highly regarded Black urban middle school mathematics teacher (Ms. Collier) understands the theoretical and empirical literature on CRP and how she changes her teaching during and after implementing a CRP curriculum unit with her Black and Latinx students. In the context of this study, I offer Ms. Collier’s journey of embracing CRMT by “remixing” her mindset as a mathematics teacher by reading and discussing CRP and CRMT literature and then remixing her curriculum and instruction in response to her “remixed” understandings. In sum, using frameworks such as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching, and Teacher Change Theory, I explored Ms. Collier’s theory-to-practice applications of CRT. The dissertation results are organized into two parts corresponding with different study phases. Part 1 focused on Ms. Collier’s fine-tuned understanding of CRP, and Part 2 focused on Ms. Collier’s perspectives on her experiences implementing CRMT with her Black and Latinx students. Data were collected from four sources: conversations, semi-structured interviews, written reflections, and memos. Key findings indicate that Ms. Collier was, in fact, a Dreamkeeper, understanding Ladson-Billings’ foundational CRP tenets of Academic Achievement, Cultural Competence, and Critical Consciousness. Findings also crystallized two new tenets of CRP I advance that are present but not explicitly named in the literature: Classroom Domain and Teacher Mindset. In addition, salient themes demonstrating each domain of Teacher Change Theory emerged, with Ms. Collier experiencing a meaningful change in perspective: It's about the curriculum AND who the person is. With this study, I challenge the idea of reducing CRP to a set of practices. My stance is that CRP is more so a process of being for the teacher because this body of work studies the more significant issue of mathematics education for Black and Latinx students. As a mathematics teacher who understands the many stereotypes and stigmas that Black and Latinx students face in the learning and doing of mathematics, Ms. Collier expressed a clear awareness of the impact that culturally relevant instructional and relational practices could have on her Black and Latinx students.Item Rupturing antiblackness in mathematics education research: Blackquantcrit as theory, methodology, & praxis(2023) Turner, Blake O'Neal; Liu, Rossina Zamora RZ; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Antiblackness and white supremacy are embedded in mathematics education, which is (re)produced and justified through epistemic violence in research. Research on the “achievement gap” is one well-known example of epistemic violence in mathematics education research where antiblackness is encoded into statistical archives. These quantitative master narratives position Black doers and learners as mathematically illiterate and normalize ideological discourses about Black inferiority, impacting research, policy, and praxis. Thus, this manuscript-style dissertation aligns with calls to advance mathematics education research, policy, and practice toward liberation for Black learners. The three studies in this dissertation employ two distinct but complementary theoretical frameworks, Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit) and Quantitative Critical Theory (QuantCrit), to advance our understanding of supporting and creating liberatory mathematics education, particularly for Black doers and learners of mathematics. In the first study, “Common Denominators: QuantCrit as a means of contextualizing antiblackness in mathematics education,” I argue for including Black Critical Theory and Quantitive Critical Theory in mathematics education research. This conceptual paper foregrounds the contributions that QuantCrit and BlackCrit provide to larger critical conversations centering race and antiblack racism in mathematics education and provides a primer on how these frameworks could be applied to mathematics education research by scholars. The second study, “Black Mathematics Teachers and the Master’s House: A Black QuantCrit Analysis,” empirically explores BlackCrit and QuantCrit using secondary data on 74 Black mathematics teachers in an alternative certification program and their dispositions towards teaching racially and culturally diverse students. I partitioned the teachers into structurally similar and practically relevant clusters using K-means clustering. The findings reveal four clusters of Black mathematics teachers: Hegemonic Academics, Individual Actors, Disruptive Conductors, and Caring Custodians. The results of this study provide insights into the utility of intraracial comparisons. Additionally, this study complicates ongoing discourses in education about improving the lives of Black doers, learners, and teachers in mathematics by recruiting and retaining more Black teachers. The third study, “BlackQuantCrit as a North Star: Critical race research workshop for Black graduate students in Mathematics Education,” draws on critical ethnographic methods to explore the cultural practices of four Black graduate students whose research attends to mathematics education (BGMER) as they participate in a collaborative research workshop. The Black graduate students participated in six two-hour workshops as they learned about and applied BlackCrit and QuantCrit to their research. Data analysis (e.g., audio transcripts of the six two-hour workshops, field notes, the researchers' analytic memos, and other resources shared during the workshops) identified three salient themes: Antiblackness is Verb, CRT as North Star, and Care is a Verb. The findings in this study illuminated the types of support BGMERs need to become critical race researchers and how they take up BlackCrit and QuantCrit in their work.Item FEELING PREPARED TO TEACH: RETHINKING THEORY THROUGH EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES(2023) Viviani, William; Brantlinger, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Researchers study teachers’ feelings of preparedness to teach for various purposes; it can serve as an indicator of the effectiveness of initial teacher preparation and is often equated to teacher self-efficacy. Despite being an object of study for several decades, the theory on teachers’ feelings of preparedness to teach is under-developed and the field lacks a shared understanding of what it should entail. This dissertation includes three stand-alone studies that highlight and address some gaps and assumptions in the literature on teachers’ feelings of preparedness to teach. The first article draws on interviews with ten experienced mathematics teachers to examine their descriptions of preparedness and build toward a definition of feelings of preparedness. These descriptions suggest two layers of preparedness: a static/provisioning layer and a dynamic/ambitious layer. The second article uses episodic interviews with six of the ten experienced teachers to investigate their feelings of (un)preparedness when they abruptly transitioned to online teaching. It shows that the online context, and not necessarily web-based technology, was the likely culprit for teachers feeling unprepared for online teaching. The third article builds a theoretical framework based on a review of 39 quantitative studies in the literature on teachers’ feelings of preparedness to teach. This framework is mapped visually with three columns, constructs that are theorized to predict feelings of preparedness, the preparedness constructs themselves, and constructs that feelings of preparedness may predict. These three studies come together to propose a reconceptualization of survey instruments and quantitative analysis for this topic. The static and dynamic layers of preparedness may help differentiate between the work and expectations of new teachers and experienced teachers and may have implications for both preparation programs and researchers. Contextual changes or disruptions, described in the second paper, can impact even experienced teachers, which may elevate the importance of school contexts in future analyses of teachers’ feelings of preparedness. The framework maps out where the field has been and proposes update considerations to survey items specific to teachers’ feelings of preparedness to teach.Item Noticing Teachers' Noticing: Understanding and Supporting Video Club Facilitation(2023) Walton, Margaret; Walkoe, Janet; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Facilitators of teacher professional development (PD) play an integral role in teacher learning. Facilitators often both plan and implement PD and it is important that they can make these experiences meaningful learning opportunities for teachers. Researchers have only recently delved more deeply into understanding the knowledge and skills facilitators need for their work, and how to support facilitators to learn such knowledge and skills. This qualitative three-article dissertation is a design-based research project that explores what facilitators do and how they learn to support teachers in developing a particular instructional skill- noticing student mathematical thinking. Noticing student thinking is how teachers center and build on student ideas in the classroom. I designed a facilitator PD (F-PD) that aimed to help six novice facilitators learn to lead video clubs, a type of teacher PD that has been shown to support teachers in learning to notice. I examined how the novice facilitators learned to lead video clubs and how characteristics of F-PD supported or constrained that learning. In the first study, “A Facilitator Noticing Framework: How Facilitators Notice Teacher Thinking,” I develop a framework for facilitators’ cognitive process as they support teachers to learn to notice in PD, like video clubs. I argue that, like teachers, facilitators also notice. However, facilitators primarily notice teacher, rather than student thinking. I explain the different aspects of teacher thinking that a facilitator might notice. I then use the framework as a lens to understand how three experienced facilitators’ interactions with teachers in video clubs support the teachers to notice student thinking. Study Two, “Novice Facilitators Learning to Lead Video Clubs: A Framing Perspective” is a close examination of how the participants in my F-PD learned to lead video clubs. The analysis included qualitative coding of the participants’ focus related to leading video clubs during discussions with each other and me as the F-PD leader. The findings indicate that participants’ understanding likely shifted. Early in the F-PD, participants appeared to think of leading video clubs as sustaining any general conversation between teachers. Later in the F-PD, the participants likely understood video club facilitation as paying attention and responding to aspects of teachers’ thinking related to noticing student thinking. The interactions between the participants and me, along with the F-PD design, appeared to contribute to this shift, which is also explained. In Study Three, “Designing to Support Facilitators to Learn to Notice Teacher Thinking,” I zoom out and look at the F-PD as an overall activity. I identify some of the problems that arose during the F-PD that constrained participants' learning. I explore how I changed the F-PD design in response or, how differences in the F-PD design from early to later session mitigated issues. I offer several design suggestions for future F-PDs, based on my findings.Item Rules of Engagement: The Role of Graduate Teaching Assistants as Agents of Mathematics Socialization for Undergraduate Students of Color(2023) Lue, Kristyn; Clark, Lawrence M; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The field of higher education has been concerned with the retention of underrepresented students of Color in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields over the last few decades. STEM identity development has emerged as a useful analytic framework in this research, as students with stronger STEM identities—students who recognize themselves and are recognized by others as “STEM people”—are more likely to persist in the STEM fields. STEM identity develops through the process of socialization, in which agents of socialization set and maintain the norms, culture, and values that newcomers in the STEM fields should emulate. At institutions of higher education, instructors act as primary agents of socialization, signaling who “belongs”—and who doesn’t—in the STEM fields. Although prior research has identified the ways in which mathematics courses gatekeep underrepresented undergraduate students of Color out of the STEM fields, little research has focused specifically on undergraduate mathematics socialization. Furthermore, the role of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) as agents of mathematics socialization remains unexamined, despite the large role they play in teaching lower-level undergraduate mathematics courses. This qualitative dissertation, which is grounded in Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness studies, utilizes critical ethnographic methods in order to examine the ways in which GTAs at a historically white [college and] university (HWCU) serve as agents of mathematics socialization for underrepresented undergraduate students of Color. Through fieldwork, individual interviews, and a series of focus groups with ten GTAs at a large, public, research-1 institution in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States (MAU), this dissertation study explored: (1) GTAs’ perceptions of the dominant culture (e.g. values and practices) of the mathematics department at their institution, and whether they sought to align with or diverge from this culture, (2) the opportunities and constraints GTAs faced in breaking from these normative values and practices, and (3) whether the ways in which GTAs described trying to break from these practices reinforced the systematic exclusion of underrepresented undergraduate students of Color in their mathematics department. Key findings include four major themes: a culture of individualism and the hidden necessity of social ties in the mathematics department at MAU, the valuation of teaching as a means of doing research, attempts by GTAs to shift normative narratives of mathematical success, and identity tensions in supporting underrepresented undergraduate students of Color. These findings highlight the importance for agents of mathematics socialization to explicitly center race, racism, and power when trying to be inclusive of underrepresented undergraduate students of Color in university mathematics settings. Without doing so, racism and whiteness are reproduced and perpetuated in the mathematics socialization of underrepresented undergraduate students of Color, despite good intentions.Item Exploring the Classroom Norms of an Undergraduate Precalculus Course and Their Relationship with Students' Self-Efficacy, Achievement, and STEM Intentions: A Convergent Mixed-Methods Study(2022) Gruber, Sean; Brantlinger, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The number of students pursuing a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree in the United States has continued to decline over the last two decades. These trends are alarming considering the national focus on providing accessible and quality STEM education to underrepresented students, as well as the fact that the number of STEM careers is projected to continue growing over the next decade. Following the nationwide push to retain students and workers in STEM fields within the United States, educational researchers have attempted to explain what goes on within undergraduate STEM classrooms to explain these trends. In so doing, researchers answer the call to analyze the teaching practices of college STEM instructors, particularly mathematics teachers, with the goal of improving instruction and student outcomes. Researchers generally agree that findings from research in K-12 classrooms on practices that engage students in the learning process, including student-centered learning, may be beneficial to students in undergraduate STEM classrooms. This study followed a convergent mixed-methods design that integrated quantitative and qualitative results in the analytic and results stages. The study utilized survey, interview, and observational data from the Precalculus course offered at Blackboard University (pseudonym) to describe the classroom norms of Precalculus and their predictive power of students’ achievement, self-efficacy, and STEM intentions. While evidence suggested some variation by dimensions of teaching considered and the Teaching Assistant (TA) for a discussion section, in general, instructors’ perceptions of classroom norms in the large lecture and discussion sections aligned with those of the students. Evidence from participants’ survey responses and interview comments suggested that both instructors and students perceived a hybrid of instructor- and student-centered norms in the large lecture and discussion sections, with more instructor-centered norms being perceived in the large lecture and more student-centered norms in the discussion sections. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to explain differences in students’ final exam grades, self-efficacy, and STEM intentions, controlling for the discussion sections students were in. Results suggested that students’ perceptions of the norms related to the teaching dimension of variation in instruction (e.g., having students explore different solution pathways and representations of problems) in the large lecture predicted an increase in students’ final exam grades and self-efficacy. However, norms related to the teaching dimension of instructor-to-student engagement (e.g., the instructor and students engaging with each other through asking and answering questions) in the large lecture predicted a decrease in students’ final exam grades. With respect to the discussion sections, norms related to the teaching dimension of instructor-to-student engagement predicted an increase in both students’ final exam grades and self-efficacy. None of the variables considered in this study predicted students’ STEM intentions.Item "Why Be Average When You Could Be Extraordinary?": A Case Study of an Exemplary African American Math Teacher(2022) Buli, Tarik; Goffney, Imani; Brantlinger, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)It is well documented that as an educational system we subject students from particular racial and socioeconomic backgrounds to unequal schooling experiences. Some researchers attribute the unequal schooling experiences and outcomes of minoritized students of color to their limited access to educational resources, like skilled teachers and quality curriculum. Other researchers identify that even in highly resourced American schools, African American students are specifically subjected to oppressive learning conditions. Given this context of schooling for African American students, this study explores how an African American 8th-grade mathematics teacher, Ms. Collier, may be a protective factor in her students’ education. Specifically, I use qualitative case study methods to examine how Ms. Collier’s instructional practice relates to historical conceptualizations of African American teachers of African American students, and how her mathematics instruction socially positions her students as learners of mathematics. For this case study, I conducted classroom observations in two differently tracked mathematics classes, as well as semi-structured interviews with Ms. Collier and her students in both classes. Ipay particular attention to how she enacts a historically situated practice of care for her students, through how she facilitates whole class discussions and maintains high expectations for her students. I then consider how her instructional practice positions the students as learners of mathematics and compare how the students are positioned in her honors and on-level classes. The findings of this study suggest that Ms. Collier’s instructional practices are rooted in a historical legacy of African American teachers resisting antiblack, deficit characterizations of Black students. Instead, Ms. Collier cares for her students by supporting them in their pursuit of mathematics learning in multifaceted and nuanced ways. Her care manifests in her teaching practice by cultivating a classroom culture that centers student belonging. She does this by allowing students to experience a range of emotions, like nervousness and joy, all the while still perceiving and treating them as mathematically competent. She also makes considerable demands of her students, including that they publicly participate in problem solving during whole class discussions, even when they do not know the answer. The classroom interactions reveal that all of Ms. Collier’s students, across both tracked classes, are positioned as mathematically competent. However, there are some distinctions in how the students are positioned across the two classes. Whereas the students in the on-level class are positioned as capable of making sense of and persisting in mathematical problem solving, in the honors class the students are positioned as capable of making mathematical connections and solving problems independently. Despite these differences, all of Ms. Collier’s students, across both tracked classes, are positioned as human.Item The Culture Beyond the Content: Does an “Overcoming Testimony” Empower Effective Urban Mathematics Teachers to Reach their Students?(2021) Smith, John Franklin; Wiseman, Donna L; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Do effective mathematics teachers with under-performing classes in urban settings possess cultural characteristics making them more effective than others?” This study evaluates the personal histories and beliefs of twelve qualifying middle school mathematics teachers to determine the role experiences and beliefs play in how teachers transform challenging classes into relatively high achievers. Effective is defined as recommended by their principals, coupled with demonstrated growth through public data of the state’s PARCC* assessment. Urban is defined as schools having close proximity to a major U.S. city, comprised of over 80% minority student populations and over 60% FARMS** recipients. Based on the literature and anecdotal evidence, a conceptual framework called the “overcoming testimony”- missionary zeal, community bonding, legacy, activist ideology and guardian angel - was designed to evaluate interview data. An interview protocol was administered and the interviews were videotaped and transcribed for further study. The impact of the teachers’ personal histories on their current practices was assessed using a coding system as the transcripts were evaluated. The results showed strong alignment with Fives and Buehl’s (2012) findings whereby beliefs “filter, frame and guide” decision-making. Beliefs and experiences filtered pedagogical choices and methods. The “overcoming testimony” elements framed their resiliency and commitment to their students’ welfare. Views on culture and content guided the teachers toward creating learning environments that promoted achievement. The data demonstrated an emerging community-bonding dynamic between African-American teachers and their Hispanic students. The results indicate effective teachers may succeed in part due to negative experiences they endured as students. I argue that based on the prevalence of beliefs and experiences evident in the interviews, these perspectives serve as a cultural lens enabling teachers to effectively engage grade-level mathematics students to demonstrate proficiency on state assessments. Without this lens, content mastery alone could be insufficient to the task.”*The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers **Free and Reduced MealsItem MIDDLE GRADES PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ TASK SELECTION IN A MEDIATED FIELD EXPERIENCE METHODS COURSE(2021) Anthony, Monica; Walkoe, Janet; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Task selection is a critical element of mathematics teaching because mathematical tasks differ in the mathematical opportunities made available to students. Thus, it is important to examine both the tasks that PSTs chose and why they were chosen. This study examines the task selection of 10 pre-service teachers (PSTs) in a middle grades mathematics methods course. Each week, PSTs prepared and delivered 90-minute lessons for their assigned small group of middle grades students in an after-school enrichment program a local middle school. PSTs were free to choose the content of their lesson plans. I use Remillard’s (2005) framework of the teacher-curriculum relationship paired with a documental approach to didactics to infer PSTs’ instructional aims and their personal and pedagogical resources leveraged during task selection and lesson planning. PSTs’ lesson plans, lesson reflections, and semi-structured interviews were analyzed to identify the intellectual resources, perspectives, and epistemologies employed by PSTs when preparing their lessons. Three broad instructional aims shared by PSTs are identified. For each of the three themes, I describe the shared aim and demonstrate how it combines with other personal resources to form a scheme of utilization which informs PSTs’ participation with instructional resources. First, the enrichment sessions should be fun. PSTs differed in how they conceptualized fun, attending to either the structure or the mathematics of the tasks. Second, PSTs aimed to avoid surprises during their lessons by anticipating student responses. Finally, PSTs aimed to select or create tasks that “fit” their students. PSTs assessed task fit by the absence of unproductive struggle and whether students completed the task. This study identifies several productive beliefs and dispositions held by PSTs when selecting tasks in an early field experience. These beliefs and dispositions can be leveraged by teacher educators to support the development of ambitious teaching practices. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of modeling high cognitive demand tasks in both mathematics methods and content courses.