| Over the years, the mathematics education community has learned a lot about reform-based teaching and learning in mathematics. But research continues to identify the difficulties in developing these practices in teachers (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). Furthermore, there is very little research exploring teacher preparation engaging pre-service teachers in reform-based teaching with a focus on equity (Kitchen, DePree, Celedon-Pattichis, & Brinkerhoff 2007). Therefore, an intervention design was implemented in a secondary mathematics methods course using videotaped mathematics lessons and a web-based software, Visibility. The situative learning perspective was used as a theoretical framework to investigate two research questions: (1) What are pre-service teachers' initial perceptions of equity and equity-based practice in a mathematics classroom and how do they change as they engage around videos? and (2) Given that discourse and norms are elements of critical practice for student participation in mathematics (Franke, Kazemi, & Battey 2007), how does video support the development of pre-service teachers' understandings of classroom discourse and norms for African American and Latino students? To answer the first question, qualitative methods were employed to analyze teachers' conversations and written work produced for the class. To answer the second question, the data corpus was classified into five ideas: Participation Structures, Mathematical Tasks, Teacher Role, English Language Learners, and Classroom Norms. Each idea was carefully coded along the Equity-Based Continuum, developed for this study based on literature. The findings of this study suggest how pre-service teachers shifted in their views on equity-based discourse and norms that support student participation in mathematics classroom. As the pre-service teachers unpacked lessons modeled in three videos and participated in the course work, they developed understanding around the complexity in implementing classroom practices, namely around particular kinds of mathematics discourse and socio-mathematical norms, critical for students' participation in mathematical justification. The hope is for these findings will contribute new knowledge to preparing mathematics teachers in urban schools. |
