This month, we wrapped up the four-month long Building Joy and Justice in Mathematics Through Inclusive Practices course. The focus of this course is to make mathematics learning culturally relevant, joyful and focused on understanding issues of fairness and justice through a mathematical lens. Throughout the course, we strove to center the experiences of Black, Brown and Indigenous students who have historically been the most underserved in mathematics education.
The course kicked off with two 3-hour sessions on Zoom, and followed with 5 weeks of self-paced online learning and 5 weeks of applying the concepts to a final project. The final project could be a lesson or unit, a re-design of an existing lesson or unit from an adopted math curriculum, or a mathematics instructional routine. One group opted to create a series of "family math nights" focused on playing mathematical games together!
To close the course, teachers came together on Zoom to share their final projects and give feedback to one another. It was so exciting to hear from teachers about their projects, many of whom had already had the opportunity to teach their lessons and instructional routines and host their events, and imagine the impact these projects were already having on students across our region.
Here are some words from our teacher participants about their experiences:
“Looking at lessons through a lens of equity has really changed how I approach lessons. Sometimes even mid-lesson I will stop and adjust to make it more comfortable for all of my students.”
“It was fantastic to be guided by other educators and mentors..”
“I relentlessly ask myself about who is being left out because of resources or language barriers. This course helped me to not only notice who was being left out, but how to build connections and intentionally seek ways to bring these people not only into the conversation, but seek ways to help them speak for themselves.”
“The teaching moves, routines, and learning habits are just as critical as the content we teach, and can have as much or more of an impact on long term mathematical engagement and success than the grade-level content.”
“I appreciate the theory and evidence driven work done around equity, joy, justice and Math that updates thinking and understanding of the student environments around us. I see these steps as key components of interrupting the white supremacist culture around STEM.”
“I appreciated that we were able to create a lesson that we could actually facilitate with our students.”
Thank you to all teacher participants for your collaboration and commitment to this work!
Leah Plack, Project Coordinator