Chapter 18: Opportunities for Colearning Equity-Oriented Mathematics Instruction in the Field Experience

This chapter offers provisional routines and a tool aimed at supporting teacher candidates and mentor teachers to learn together in becoming equity-oriented mathematics educators. These routines and tool aim to bring to life AMTE’s Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics (2017) vision that field experiences should be mutually beneficial, “a system of simultaneous growth and renewal for the teacher candidate-mentor teacher-university supervisor team” such that “all participants learn and lead while they work on behalf of students” (p. 37). We offer an example of how interactions in the field experience, guided by the routines and tool we are creating, can serve as an authentic, mutually beneficial partnership between teacher education programs and K-12 schools enabling teachers at different points in their careers to work together to develop and deepen their vision, understandings, and practices of equity-oriented mathematics instruction. The routines and the tool intend to support simultaneous learning and growth for both teacher candidates and their mentor teachers in ways that are flexible enough to be implemented in a variety of university and field placement settings. Our exploration focuses on the following questions in the context of a design research study:

1. How can the field experience be a productive site for co-learning equity-oriented mathematics instruction?

2. What are the design features of teacher education tools that support teacher candidates and mentor teachers in co-learning equity-oriented mathematics instruction?