Chapter 10: Looking Through A Mirror With A Third Eye: Improving Mathematics Teaching In Culturally Diverse Classrooms

Motivating teachers and students to pursue the study of mathematics can be challenging. This challenge becomes even more difficult when working with teachers who must engage and motivate students from diverse populations. As schools across the United States become more diverse in language, culture, and race, mathematics teachers are being challenged to critically analyze their current teaching to increase the number of students who have access to STEM learning opportunities in an equitable manner to equip the diverse groups representative of the nation’s population. Professional development research in mathematics education has not completely addressed how teachers are gaining competency in effectively teaching STEM- related content to students from diverse backgrounds even though there is some agreement on what those teaching competencies are. In a recent study in a large urban school with a high diverse population, researchers found that middle school teachers whose students had high academic gains in mathematics were more likely to implement teaching practices that (a) developed students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics, (b) made connections between mathematics and other disciplines, and (c) used textbooks as a resource rather than as the primary instructional tool (McDonald, Polnick,& Robles-Pina, 2013). Additionally, in a keynote address at the 2012 annual National Association of Professional Development Schools conference, distinguished researcher and educator Linda Darling-Hammond summarized common findings from several studies which included that effective teachers (a) understand subject matter deeply and flexibly, (b) connect what is learned to student’s prior knowledge and experience, (c) use instructional strategies that help students to draw conclusions, and (d) apply and practice new skills learned. The characteristics and behaviors described above also embrace many elements of what is described as culturally responsive teaching (Ladson-Billings, 2009).