- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 2409848
- First Name Susan
- Last Name Swars Auslander
- Registration Faculty/Administrator/Other
- Discipline Mathematics
- Role Principal Investigator (PI)
- Presenters
Susan Swars Auslander, The University of Alabama; Naisha Lyons, Thomas Simerson, Alyson Stephens, Joanna Troxel, and JoAnne Williams, Gwinnett County Public Schools
Need
Far too few elementary students in the U.S., especially those from underserved communities, have opportunities to learn rigorous and relevant mathematics. As a means of improving this system of mathematics education that is not serving all students, there is much advocacy for Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMSs) in schools to enhance planning, teaching, learning, and assessment of the subject (Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators [AMTE] et al., 2022). EMSs can serve in varying roles in schools and districts, having expertise in using and helping others use ambitious and equitable mathematics instruction. Because of these differing roles (e.g., teacher, instructional interventionist, informal teacher leader, formal instructional coach), EMSs’ responsibilities may involve support for students, teachers, and/or others. Proponents assert that EMSs are a critical element of improving classroom instruction and school- and district-based professional learning opportunities for teachers, with increasing research showing that these professionals positively affect student achievement. There is a renewed call for EMSs, as several prominent mathematics education organizations, including AMTE and the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), recently issued a joint statement (2022) on the need for every elementary school to have access to an EMS who has completed rigorous specialized preparation. While there has been much interest in and advocacy for EMSs, the extant literature offers relatively limited research on EMSs’ work as teacher leaders and how they engage in those efforts in schools and districts (Baker et al., 2023). Further, while EMSs’ varying instructional support and leadership roles allow for responsiveness to local context and need (McGatha & Rigelman, 2017), this variance simultaneously presents challenges for understanding their effective use. Studying the application of these professionals’ leadership knowledge and skills is particularly important, since this aspect of their work is essential for initiating and sustaining change in school settings (Fennell, 2013). Related studies of EMSs’ teacher leadership largely focus on those in formal teacher leader roles, such as coach, rather than those in informal teacher leader roles. There is a need for inquiry on EMSs who are leading from both within and outside their classrooms (Rigelman & Lewis, 2023). Accordingly, this study involved novice EMSs who are boundary crossers through serving as informal teacher leaders with a primary responsibility of teaching students. The 26 EMSs worked in 21 urban-situated schools largely serving historically marginalized students. They were participating in a rigorous 5-year professional development program endeavoring to prepare and support them as highly effective and equitable mathematics teachers and teacher leaders. Across 3 years, the inquiry explored the teacher leadership of EMSs in an informal teacher leader capacity, focusing on how they advocated for ambitious mathematics instruction.
Research Questions
This research question guided the study: How do novice Elementary Mathematics Specialists advocate for ambitious mathematics instruction as informal teacher leaders?
Approach
The design of this study includes a descriptive, holistic singular-case approach (Yin, 2014), focusing on an in-depth investigation of a case within a real-world context. Qualitative and quantitative data form the descriptive findings. The context includes a 5-year professional development program for 26 elementary teachers who are prepared and supported as EMSs. They are largely teachers of color working in urban-situated schools that serve historically marginalized students. Program goals include the development of EMSs who deliver ambitious and equitable mathematics instruction (Aguirre et al., 2013; NCTM, 2020) and serve as mathematics teacher leaders in a variety of ways, especially coaching. The EMSs’ primary responsibility is teaching students, thus they are a distinctive population as informal teacher leaders. At the time of the study, they had completed 3 years of the program, including: two university endorsement programs, namely K-5 Mathematics and Teacher Supporting & Coaching; monthly professional learning communities; and individual mentoring. Data were collected at the end of Years 1, 2, and 3 via a Teacher Leader Record (TLR). The TLR provides a template for descriptive responses around the four aspects of content, duration, frequency, and outcome for each participant’s teacher leader activities. The analysis of the TLR focused on the content of the teacher leader activities, which largely involved examination for description and frequency of activities, with clustering into categories. These data were also analyzed for intended spheres of influence, specifically who were the audiences or recipients of the efforts. Data were also collected through individual interviews of eight randomly selected participants, as well as three focus group interviews of those who did not participate in the individual interviews. Both interview protocols include questions about their work and engagement as teacher leaders, including coaching. Analysis of interview transcripts involved constant comparative methods (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).
Outcomes
The TLR data illuminate the content of their teacher leader activities across the 3 years, including prevalence and variability, along with intended audiences or recipients. The number of activities reported per year (typically 3-6) was dependent upon the scope and scale of each activity. These efforts were in addition to the required program activity of each participant coaching a teacher candidate every year, with Table 1 showing these efforts (excluding coaching teacher candidates). Evident are the teacher leader efforts that they choose to engage in over the time period, with the most prevalent including: leading mathematics professional development for fellow teachers at grade, school, and district levels; serving on mathematics-focused committees at school and district levels; and leading school-wide events such as Math or STEM Nights that involve connections with parents/caregivers and families. Table 2 shows the audiences of their teacher leader activities (excluding coaching teacher candidates and in-service teachers). Across the 3 years, most of their work was aimed at audiences on a school or district level. Further, grade level-focused activities decreased from Year 1, while efforts directed at the national level increased. Table 1. Teacher Leader Activities: Percentages of Whole across 3 Years, Percentage of Whole Teacher Leader Activity Year 1,Year 2,Year 3. Led professional development 19%, 19%, 20%. Supported non-profit’s tutoring program 10%, 12%, 7% Coached in-service teachers 13%, 11%, 6% Led school-wide events 12%, 12%, 17% Created resources for parents/students 11%, 3%, 9% Created resources for teachers 14%, 9%, 9% Presented at conferences 2%, 7%, 5% Served on committees 17%, 24%, 13% Led extracurricular activities 4%, 4%, 11% Reviewed for journals 0%, 0%, 2% Table 2. Audiences of Teacher Leader Activities: Percentages of Whole across 3 Years Percentage of Whole Teacher Leader Activities Audience Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 Grade 13%, 6%, 6% School 66%, 54%, 66% District 8%, 19%, 12% Community 11%, 13%, 8% State 0%, 3%, 0% National 2%, 4%, 8% While the TLR data provide insights into the prevalence, variability, and audiences of the participants’ teacher leadership, analysis of the interview data reveals complexities in this work. Emergent themes include: strategic moves in advocacy and dual citizenship: opening up opportunities. In their teacher leader efforts, there was much navigation of the ideological and pedagogical differences between the district’s prescribed model for instructional delivery (gradual release centered on direct instruction) and what they had learned in the project. In the participants’ advocacy for the newly learned pedagogy, they described ways of being strategic as they navigated contextual elements and various others. The theme strategic moves in advocacy is organized around: judicious communicating and collaborating with those in positions of power at their school sites (administrators and formal mathematics coaches); teachers seeing and experiencing for themselves success with the new pedagogy; incremental changes with patience and persistence; and building productive relationships. Further, the theme dual citizenship: opening up opportunities illuminates how their positioning as informal teacher leaders and teachers of students provided affordances in their work with teachers, including credibility, authority, accessibility, relatability, empathy, and responsiveness, along with support for teachers’ professional autonomy and expertise. They recognized the challenges of the formal mathematics coach position and found advantages in being an informal teacher leader, including being non-evaluative and operating in a non-intrusive way that supported teachers as professionals.
Broader Impacts
The results illuminate the work the EMSs chose to engage in as informal teacher leaders and in doing so, the complexities of engaging in this work. There is a deepened understanding of the demands placed on them as informal teacher leaders new to the role. As informal teacher leaders, their work shows some contrast with those who serve as formal mathematics coaches (Chval et al., 2010; Mudzimiri et al., 2014; Whitenack et al., 2014), especially when it comes to outreach to the community, parents/caregivers, and families. In their teacher leader efforts, they were using strategic moves when navigating constraining and conflicting contextual conditions largely emanating from the district’s prescribed instructional model. In general, it is important that EMSs use their agency and draw from their situated understandings, developed expertise, and professional judgement to productively navigate conditions such as increased standardization of education and inequitable practices and structures. Some claim that teachers who serve as leaders are specially positioned to promote change within schools because they are well-informed about the complexities inherent in teaching (Mangin & Stoelinga, 2008; Wenner & Campbell, 2017). Teachers who cross boundaries by taking on leadership positions while remaining in the classroom are potentially among the most influential leaders in schools. As articulated by participants in this study, this type of legitimacy can only be granted by other teachers and not by a positional title (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2009). Too often those serving in formal teacher leader capacities, such as coaches, assume evaluative roles and accordingly teachers may resist those individuals and be less likely to seek their support (Woulfin & Rigby, 2017). Informal teacher leaders are immediate resources, as they are close colleagues having expertise and a more developed practice. For these participants who are classroom teachers with situated knowledge of mathematics and teaching of the subject, they are strongly positioned to lead instructional improvement efforts at their school sites. Continued study of these EMSs and their development as advocates for ambitious and equitable mathematics instruction offers an exciting opportunity to understand the contexts and conditions in which they are most effective.
