Chapter 4: Centering Equity in Mathematics Graduate Student Teaching Professional Development

Mathematics Graduate Teachers (MGTs) play an important role in the teaching of undergraduate mathematics, and, as new teachers, often rely on their past experiences as students to inform their teaching. Research and policy call for attending to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and go further to push for DEI principles to be integrated across all teacher preparation experiences. Current professional development for MGTs varies and does not always integrate DEI principles or often they are a separate add-on training activity. In fact, experts in the field of MGT development note that MGTs often make assumptions about their students. Novice MGTs fail to recognize that their students are a diverse group of people with unique experiences and relationships with mathematics that may or may not be positive. We highlight in this chapter an activity we call “the Brown Bag activity” that has been widely used in multiple STEM fields to help MGTs build empathy and better understand their students. We identify critical conversations to have with MGTs early in their teaching that attend to key DEI principles and help deepen their emotional intelligence to be better classroom teachers. Being conscience of and addressing these issues as a community will help move the field of mathematics teacher education forward.