Sandra Crespo - Böcker

One of the boys in the group responded, “That’s so smart! That’s so smart! That’s what we should do!” Complex Instruction (CI) is a response to the paradox that group work offers much potential but often creates circumstances where few students seem to learn. CI is a set of ideas and strategies that address the problems that confound group work, but that create powerful learning for children. This book offers guidance to readers on how to use these strategies and ideas. The authors describe the lessons they learned using group work, explain how complex instruction helps unsuccessful students and analyse how to design assignments that support group learning - using group-worthy tasks - giving readers examples of good tasks and help in adapting math problems from their own curricula.

Promoting empowerment, meaningful participation, and success for each and every student.Access and Equity: Promoting High-Quality Mathematics in Grades 3–5 examines the challenges related to access, equity, and empowerment faced by students making the critical transition into mathematics of the third through fifth grades. It provides guidance for making these essential improvements in practice:Finding ways to reframe common beliefs about nondominant students and communitiesMeeting the linguistic demands in mathematics classrooms for emerging bilingual studentsAdopting approaches that engage all students in mathematical discourseImplementing professional development that can make an impact with culturally and linguistically diverse studentsThe third through fifth grades are a crucial period when educational imbalances begin to take hold, as inequities in resources and expectations become more pronounced and significant. This book will help teachers provide a challenging, effective mathematics education for each and every student in those classrooms, and thus fully implement the Access and Equity Principle in NCTM’s Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All.

The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) in its 2015 position paper on Equity in Mathematics Teacher Education provides a list of actions for mathematics teacher educators (MTE’s) to help them develop and implement equitable practices. The position paper states it is critical that mathematics teacher educators: “Model equity-based pedagogy that emphasizes rich and rigorous mathematics; elicit and build on children’s and young adults’ mathematical thinking; connect to P-12 students’ cultural/linguistic knowledge and backgrounds as well as individual interests; facilitate mathematical discourse; minimize status issues by expanding broader participation and engagement where varied mathematical strengths are valued; and promote positive mathematical identity and agency (p. 2)”.Cases for Mathematics Teacher Educators: Facilitating Conversations about Inequities in Mathematics Classrooms provides an excellent resource to start conversations describing the enactment of these actions. The book is organized into three main sections: (1) Conversations About Inequities in Mathematics Methods Courses, (2) Conversations About Inequities in Mathematics Content Courses, and (3) Conversations about Inequities in Graduate and Professional Development Contexts. Across these sections there are 19 cases and 57 corresponding commentaries focused on dilemmas that arise when mathematics teacher educators foreground equity in their work. This book of cases provides a needed resource for MTEs to engage prospective teachers, practicing teachers, and future teacher educators in discussions about inequities, privilege, and oppression in society, in schools, and in the mathematics classroom. It is the product of the thinking and experiences of 87 authors who are committed to the improvement of mathematics teacher education.