Preparing Mentors to Support Novices in Eliciting Student Thinking during Mathematics Discussions: Developing and Testing a Simulation-based PD Program

Nearly 200,000 candidates graduate from teacher preparation programs each year, and mentor teachers have a crucial role in the preparation of teacher candidates as they spend far more time engaging with candidates than any other teacher educator. Effective mentoring of teacher candidates can help to bridge the gap between the teacher-centered practices of today’s elementary mathematics classrooms and the student-centered practices that are needed to grow curious and competent STEM students. And yet, mentors receive little to no support about how support candidate development. This project aims to support mentor teachers in better modeling the effective mathematics teaching practices for candidates in their own teaching and providing candidates with actionable feedback on those practices as they learn to teach elementary mathematics. The project supports mentors as both: (1) teacher learners who benefit from additional support in ambitious teaching in mathematics; and (2) teacher educators who need support in recognizing candidates’ strengths and areas for growth, as well as in giving useful feedback. The project will design and study an online, portable mentor teacher professional development (PD) program that target mentors’ teaching and feedback skills in elementary mathematics. Designing online modules will support large-scale work in ways that in-person PD cannot. Additionally, the project will identify factors that contribute to the differential uptake of the PD. More broadly, this project aims to (1) promote educator development by generating new knowledge about how to help mentors support teacher candidate learning; (2) broaden participation in mathematics by historically marginalized and minoritized youth, who are far more likely than their peers to be taught by a first year teacher; and (3) enhance infrastructure for research and education by generating PD materials and measures that can be used and studied at scale.

This project aims to enhance the quality of elementary mathematics teaching by developing mentors who can better support the next generation of teacher candidates. Teaching simulations are used as a cornerstone of the  design of the professional learning, providing a low-stakes practice space for mentors to practice and model effective elementary mathematics teaching. The PD will focus on eliciting students’ thinking, a teaching practice that is fundamental to leveraging students’ mathematical resources and ideas. The professional learning also focused on mentors’ skills in giving candidates actionable feedback on their elicitation of student thinking in mathematics. This study uses a mixed-methods, randomized control trial design in which  150 mentor-candidate pairs are randomly assigned to either PD or control (business-as-usual) conditions. Mentors and candidates are observed in both simulations and live classroom interactions to answer the following questions: (1) Does the mentor PD impact mentors’ teaching and feedback skills, as well as candidates’ teaching skills? (2) How are mentors’ teaching and feedback skills similar in simulated and live classroom settings? And (3) What is the nature of the feedback that mentors give candidates? Are there differences between the feedback of PD and control groups across the year? Very few studies have used experimental designs to estimate credibly causal effects of teacher education reforms on candidate (or mentor) outcomes. This study will provide much-needed causal evidence for the effects of practice-based preparation on the development of both mentors’ and candidates’ teaching in elementary mathematics.