Equity and Access to High-Quality Instruction in Middle School Mathematics

1. Equity and Access to High-Quality Instruction in Middle School Mathematics Collaborators on SGER work: Paul Cobb, Glenn Colby, Anne Garrison, Lynsey Gibbons, Bob Jiménez, Rich Milner, Rebecca Schmidt, EmilyShahan,& Jonee Wilson; Vanderbilt University Melissa Boston, Duquesne University Kara Jackson McGill University

2. Specifying A Vision of Ambitious and Equitable Instruction • If instruction was equitable, all students would be supported to participate substantially in each phase of a mathematics lesson • Not necessarily in the same ways • Specify concrete forms of instructional practice that are learnable in the context of high-quality professional development Jackson, K., & Cobb, P. (under review). Refining a vision of ambitious mathematics instruction to address issues of equity.

3. Ambitious Vision of Mathematics Instruction (e.g., McClain, 2002; NCTM, 2000; Stein, Engle, Smith, & Hughes, 2008; Stein, Henningsen, & Silver, 2000)

4. Ambitious and Equitable Vision of Mathematics Instruction Jackson, K., Shahan, E., Gibbons, L., & Cobb, P. (under review). Launching tasks to support all students’ learning.

5. Revised Question • What does it take to support middle-grades mathematics teachers’ development of ambitious and equitable instructional practices on a large scale?

6. Next Steps: Supporting Ambitious & Equitable Teaching at Scale • Test and refine a comprehensive set of hypotheses regarding the development of an instructional system and the practices of the various role groups • organized around ambitious and equitable teaching

7. Components of an Instructional System • Explicit goals for students’ mathematical learning • Vision of ambitious & equitable mathematics instruction—concrete instructional practices • Instructional materials • Pull-out professional development (PD) focused on specific forms of practice, organized around materials, sustained over time • Teacher collaborative time focused on specific forms of practice that have been focus on pull-out PD • Student assessments that focus on above learning goals and can inform • ongoing improvement of mainstream instruction • identification of students who are currently struggling and require additional support (e.g., Bryk, 2009; Lampert, Boerst, & Graziani, 2011)

8. Supporting Ambitious & Equitable Teaching at Scale • Hypothesis: Development of an instructional system will support improvement in teachers’ • Vision of high-quality mathematics instruction • Vision of students’ mathematical capabilities (Horn, 2007) • Mathematical knowledge for teaching (Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004) • Quality of instruction

9. Supporting Ambitious & Equitable Teaching at Scale • Development of a coherent instructional system organized around ambitious and equitable goals for teaching has implications for various role groups’ practices • e.g., Coaches, Principals, District leaders

10. Product • Empirically-grounded theory of action for the development of ambitious and equitable instruction in middle-grades mathematics