Students interpret line graphs about places with extreme temperatures, learn about Matthew Henson’s role in an expedition to the North Pole, and make line graphs showing the average temperature in a place someone in their family or neighborhood has lived.
A teacher explores how inviting her students to reflect on positive math experiences helps her acknowledge and build on students’ strengths and current understandings.
Math specialist Rachel Goldner describes working towards her goal: “students [who] look less often at me for assurance, correct answers and approaches and…instead look within themselves for how to solve problems.”
Establishing and maintaining an equitable math learning community requires explicit attention, careful planning, and hard work, from the beginning of the school year.
A critical component of a community where every student feels like they belong is the development of classroom agreements.
How can the design of a room promote the distribution of math authority, equitable participation, and respect for different learners? How can it ensure that students see themselves, feel welcome, and understand that this will be a joint undertaking?
Students investigate features of shape as they learn about quilts and quilters and as they make their own paper quilts.
Excursions are deep and rigorous math activities that support all students in making meaningful connections between the mathematics they are learning, their interests, their communities, and the world. They support the development of a vibrant mathematics classroom in which all students feel that their identities are welcomed and engage actively and joyfully in learning.
Math Workshop can foster the development of an equitable learning community. When it is structured to foster independence and encourage students in taking responsibility for their own learning and the learning of others, it can also the development of mathematical identity and agency.
Since its launch in Fall 2023, the Forum for Equity in Elementary Mathematics has pursued our goal of providing resources, publications, and professional learning opportunities to broaden and deepen perspectives and to open up discussions among educators about equitable math learning communities. Check out our resources.