High school mathematics teachers' noticing of inequitable talk

Abstract

To make instructional decisions that interrupt inequitable talk in the classroom, teachers must notice it in the first place. In a two-year Professional Learning Experience (PLE) focused on the core practice of facilitating equitable discussions, we found that two different groups of math teachers took up the work of noticing for equity in different ways and with varying degrees of success. We analyzed teachers’ written goals for teaching, videos of their in-person classroom instruction, video recordings of their coaching sessions, and sets of video annotations. Our findings indicate that teachers who noticed for equity: (1) engaged in conversations about status and identity (2) had more student-centered goals, and (3) were more likely to select “bumpy moments” of their instruction to discuss in coaching sessions. These findings have implications for instructional coaches, teacher educators, and professional learning facilitators interested in supporting teachers with noticing inequitable talk in their classrooms.