Chapter 3: A Framework for Responsive Middle Level Mathematics Teaching

This chapter introduces an emerging conceptual framework for Responsive Middle Level Mathematics Teaching (RMLMT), defined as quality mathematics teaching for young adolescents that advances their mathematical thinking, promotes equity and social justice, and attends to their developmental characteristics, needs, and interests. The RMLMT framework fills a void in existing middle grades education and mathematics education literature by converging developmentalism and culturally responsive mathematics teaching to form a more comprehensive way of thinking about teaching middle level mathematics to young adolescent learners. In this chapter we describe the evolution of the RMLMT, discuss the frameworks that informed our thinking, speak to the need for a comprehensive approach for teaching middle level mathematics to young adolescent learners, introduce the RMLMT framework, and provide an example of a middle level mathematics lesson that illustrates the implementation of all RMLMT dimensions. We conclude with various calls to middle level teacher educators, subject-area specific teacher educators, and colleagues in the school district as well as present areas for future research.