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Preceding Page
- Generating Mathematical and Scientific Power in Maine
- Statement of Equity in Mathematics and Science
- Looking Ahead
- School, State, and District Policies
- Partnerships and Community Outreach to Parents, Caregivers, and Business
- Curriculum, Instructional Materials, Frameworks
Current Page
- Professional Development
- Assessment
- Administration
- Technology
- School Structure, School Climate, and Classroom Practice
Following Page
Changing mathematics and science teaching means that educators change themselves (Weissglass, 1994). Changes in instruction mean that teachers and schools are transformed. In order for the transformation to be successful, there must be support for the change. In order for professional development to be successful, it must be equitable. This means that both preservice and inservice professionals must have access to professional development opportunities, as well as the time and resources to participate in them.
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Equity Standard All teachers, including those who are members of underrepresented groups, participate in professional development programs.
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Strategies:
- Include teachers from underrepresented groups in decisions regarding professional development activities.
- Encourage teachers from underrepresented groups to participate in professional development activities.
- Ensure that support for participation in professional development activities is available and is distributed equitably.
- Make certain that professional resources (e.g., books, computers, release time) essential for professional development are distributed equitably.
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Equity Standard All teachers are prepared and supported to teach diverse populations of students.
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Strategies:
- Ensure that professional development activities include ways to teach diverse groups of students.
- Include professional development activities relating to equity and diversity as an integral part of all professional development activities.
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Equity Standard Leadership development programs include participants from all segments of the professional staff.
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Strategies:
- Ensure that staff who are knowledgeable about equity issues serve on all school committees.
- Include professionals from diverse backgrounds in leadership development activities.
- Select teachers for leadership roles equitably.
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Equity Standard Professional development activities address equity and diversity in all classrooms.
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Strategies:
- Ensure that professional development activities relating to equity and diversity are offered regularly to the school staff.
- Make certain that employment practices encourage the school staff to participate in professional development activities relating to equity and diversity.
- Require that professional development materials are free of stereotyping and bias.
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Suggested Topics for Professional
Development Activities
- Eliminating discrimination and bias
- Accommodating students who are from underrepresented groups
- Accommodating staff who are from underrepresented groups
- Teaching heterogeneous groups of students
- Creating alternatives to tracking
- Exploring the learning needs of female and male students
- Understanding other cultures
- Accommodating students whose native language is not English
- Accommodating students with disabilities
- Using a variety of teaching methods to teach students
- Socializing with parents and caregivers who come from diverse backgrounds
MEASURING UP
Equity Considerations for Professional Development
- Do teachers from underrepresented groups and at all grade levels participate in professional development programs?
- Are professional development resources distributed fairly?
- Are all teachers prepared to teach diverse groups of students?
- Do leadership development programs include teachers from underrepresented groups?
- Do professional development activities address equity and diversity?
Assessment is a powerful process with a profound influence on curriculum, instruction, and classroom and school organization. Some forms of assessment, particularly standardized tests, neither accurately assess the mathematics and science tasks that students are expected to perform or nor inform instruction well. They may adversely affect the mathematics and science curriculum (Century, 1994). As they are now constructed, many standardized tests are insensitive to student achievement and the curriculum. Tests may be biased in favor of one group over another and may be discriminatory.
New assessment tools should be non-biased, link the curriculum with teaching and learning, consider the context of the subject matter, and not favor one group over another. Many alternative or authentic tests are offering more promise as equitable assessments. One assumption underlying authentic assessment is that these tests create equitable opportunities for students to demonstrate learning. Authentic tests measure what teachers teach and what students are supposed to do. They test what teachers think is essential and test them in context (Wiggins, 1989). However, authentic assessment instruments cannot be assumed to be unbiased; teachers must examine all assessment and evaluation tools. Alternative forms of assessment include: portfolios, performance assessment, open-ended tasks, observation, interviews and group work.
Differences in test results may be due to differences in educational opportunities and resources. However, when one group scores consistently higher than another group on a test it may be an indication that the test is biased. One example of bias may be that tests portray individuals in stereotypic ways or that the test problems contain references to only males or only middle-class individuals (American Association of University Women, 1992) or to topics that carry status with only those groups.===============================================
Equity Standards Methods of student assessment are sensitive to diverse student populations.
Student assessments are consistent with teaching strategies and are sensitive to diverse student populations.
When assessing student work, educators use more than one type of assessment tool.
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Teachers need to design tools to evaluate what they believe students should know and be able to do. Useful assessment tools are sensitive to the context of the subject matter. Students should play a substantial role in the evaluation of their work and should enjoy opportunities to make presentations in other languages, to demonstrate their abilities and skills in various forms, and to use materials from various cultures.
Assessment activities must be accessible to students and be able to provide evidence about what the student knows. One of the inequities of assessment tools is that some students may be unfamiliar or perform best with certain types of assessment tasks. Thus, a variety of assessment tasks should be used.
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A Variety of Assessment Tasks*Written Verbal Kinesthetic Visualadvertisement commercial charade bulletinbooklet comparison demonstration board- field manual dialogue field trip cartoon- guidebook musical invention game- handbook recording paper mache picturemyth puppets dictionarycrossword interview weaving posterpuzzle timelinenewspaperdiarystory problemsobservation___________________
*Adapted from Curry & Samara (1991).===============================================
Equity Standard Student assessments and tests are based on the new mathematics and science standards.
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The new standards hold that education has multiple purposes and these purposes are the criteria for identifying what students should know and be able to do. Assessment must consider the context of mathematics and science education (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993). Assessment tasks must have a clear purpose. In developing the sense of purpose, assessment tasks must be rich, complex, contribute to the overall task, have multiple solutions, and be accessible to a range of students (California Department of Education, 1992).
Strategy:
- Ensure that assessment tasks:
- take place in the context of teaching and learning;
- take a variety of forms in order to be accessible to a range of students;
- allow students sufficient time to complete the task;
- allow access to peers and tools (e.g., books, notes, calculators, pattern blocks);
- provide opportunities for students to revise their work and inform their learning;
- incorporate peer assessment and self-assessment;
- provide opportunities to explore "what-ifs."
When teachers respect and celebrate the diversity of the classroom and students follow the teachers' lead, the students also learn to appreciate the variety of ideas, approaches, strategies, and solutions to a problem. They come to respect everyone's work, producing a classroom climate that encourages students to take risks and venture incomplete thoughts, knowing that others will try to understand and will value the individual's thinking. (California Department of Education, 1992, p. 53)
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Equity Standard Assessment instruments are free of bias.
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Valid assessments can be made only when the assessment is fair. Fair assessment requires that all students have access to mathematics and science instruction, the opportunity to learn mathematics and science, and the opportunity to participate in mathematics and science instruction.===============================================
Equity Standard Baseline data for student achievement are collected.
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Wiggins (1993) proposed that a student's work be scored longitudinally by assessing the student's accomplishments and progress. Work should be scored toward a standard of exemplary performance on exemplary tasks, not by subtracting points on isolated tests that represent perfection. The criteria used in scoring should identify the important aspects in the student's work over time and be used in helping to recognize patterns of success.
In addition, teachers and test administrators should use a scoring scheme that assigns points according to the degree of difficulty of assignments. This helps to identify the quality of the performance and the degree of difficulty of the task and helps students determine the degree of difficulty that they believe is comfortable for them. Whatever type of scoring scheme is used, students should know what assessment criteria are being used. If a rubric is used, the student should be familiar with it and, at best, have participated in the development of the scoring system.
One of the most important aspects of assessment is feedback. Formal assessment and feedback from peers and teachers should help to encourage the development of mathematics and scientific thinking. Assessment should evaluate the work and the performance of the student and not be used to label, sort or stigmatize students. Ways in which the teacher can provide feedback to parents and students include:
Wiggins (1993) suggests the use of scaffolded assessments. All students are given the same demanding assignments but the assessments are different, thus ensuring equitable assessment. Tracking perpetuates low standards and low expectations. Students who are in the lower tracks generally do not have access to world-class standards. When instruction and assessment are fair, there is an equitable system for judging performance based on high standards known to everyone.
MEASURING UP
Equity Considerations for Assessment
- Have students had opportunities to learn the mathematics and science being assessed?
- Are students informed of assessment criteria in advance?
- Are methods of student assessment sensitive to diverse student populations?
- Are student assessments consistent with and supportive of teaching strategies?
- Are student assessments based on the new mathematics and science standards?
- Are assessment instruments free of stereotyping and bias?
- Do scoring guides accommodate unanticipated but reasonable responses?
Administrators must show strong leadership in assuring awareness and training in equity and in providing appropriate resources and staff development training. Administrators can choose from an assortment of intervention programs: one-day conferences and workshops, audiovisual and printed products which help raise awareness and change attitudes, hands-on experiential learning, curriculum development projects, inservice programs and summer institutes (Davis & Humphreys, 1985). Whichever programs are chosen, the administrator must take the lead in emphasizing their importance.
In addition, administrators are responsible for demonstrating the many advantages that a diverse school population offers (Meyer, 1989; Stanic, 1989). As one principal said, "If our schools can teach students to respect one another, can give them the experience of living together peacefully, then we'll have fewer lives lost" (Hanson, 1992, p. 3). Administrators must also make sure that school finance policies provide equitable classroom environments (Apple, 1992). They are accountable to their own building, to their district, and to their state (Sanders & Stone, 1986; Schmuck, 1985).===============================================
Equity Standards Administrators actively promote activities that address issues of equity.
Administrators are responsible for implementing school, state, and district equity policies.
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Strategies for administrators at the building level:
- Support equity issues as an integral part of the curriculum, rather than as an "add-on."
The administration helps advance systemic reform or restructuring that is necessary in order for equity to encompass all aspects of school life.
- Require a multidimensional curriculum that is accessible to all students.
The administration helps assure that the curriculum reflects the local community as well as a wider, more global one.
- Ensure that the school is sensitive to religious holidays and cultural and family observances.
Administrators assure that all school staff are aware of special religious holidays and cultural and family observances and that appropriate accommodations for school staff and students are made.
- Provide inservice sessions relating to issues of equity.
The administration provides introductory and follow-up inservice sessions throughout the year. In addition, administrators include issues relating to equity on the agendas for teacher and staff meetings during the year.
- Encourage staff members to attend professional workshops and courses related to equitable mathematics and science instruction.
Teachers and staff who attend these workshops and courses are expected to make presentations and circulate useful materials to those who did not attend.
- Establish a fair and rotating schedule for teachers who want to attend local, state, regional or national conferences and seminars relating to issues of equity.
- Support with time and money appropriate curriculum, innovative instruction, and methods of student assessment that are sensitive to diverse populations.
- Provide sufficient time for teachers to discuss student performance with parents and caregivers.
- Schedule time for teachers and other professionals to plan, observe and work with each other as they develop curriculum that encourages equity.
- Advocate peer observations by teachers and videotaping for self-checking. A self-rating scale or reciprocal visits between teachers may be helpful in some cases.
- Hire teachers who are enthusiastic about teaching all types of students and all configurations of classes.
- Encourage and support heterogeneous grouping and untracking.
- Incorporate equity considerations into the evaluation of teachers.
- Ensure a school environment that includes abundant examples of diversity.
The school should contain posters, books and other materials that sensitively address issues of equity.
- Confirm the value of diversity by attending meetings with students, parents and other community members.
Strategies for administrators at the district level:
- Ensure that issues of equity are part of the agendas at district meetings of school administrators.
The administrator should explain the importance of addressing equity in the district as a whole.
- Discuss with other administrators the benefits of incorporating equity into the curricula of the various individual schools.
- Present to the school board the benefits of incorporating equity into the curricula of all the schools in the district.
- Publicize the successes experienced by the district in the area of equity issues.
Strategies for administrators at the state level:
- Demonstrate to other educators the benefits of incorporating equity into all schools.
- Encourage educators from around the state to visit schools successfully addressing equity concerns.
MEASURING UP
Equity Considerations for Administration
- Are issues of equity an integral part of the regular curriculum?
- Is attendance at professional workshops and courses related to equity issues encouraged throughout the year?
- Do teachers represent the rich diversity of the school population?
- Is equity incorporated into the evaluation of teachers?
- Are issues of equity part of the agendas at district and state meetings of school administrators?
The use of technology in mathematics and science instruction can be a powerful tool in ensuring equity. However, there are many barriers to the use of technology (Schubert, 1984):
- lack of encouragement for some students;
- limited access;
- dominance of one student over others in time available for using technology;
- under-representation of some students in leadership roles that require the use of technology;
- inappropriate location of computers in schools;
- lack of teacher training in using computers and software;
- restriction of up-to-date technology to advanced courses or upper grade levels;
- lack of assistive devices, specialized software, and information about how to adapt the use of computers to the specialized needs of students;
- software that incorporates stereotypes and bias;
- lack of availability of up-to-date equipment for all students.
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Equity Standards All students and teachers have daily access to the use of up-to-date technology and equipment.
All students and teachers have equitable opportunities to learn about and use up-to-date technology and equipment.
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Equity in the use of technology means that technology is used to empower all students and all teachers to perform at their highest abilities and at their own pace. Technology can help students and teachers to develop strategies for problem solving, understand abstract concepts, integrate the study of mathematics and science, increase communication, and provide opportunities for cooperative and individualized instruction.
All classrooms should have manipulatives, calculators, computers and software available at all times, including before and after school and on weekends. Students should develop a range of abilities and skills to use technology and be able to choose the appropriate technology. The use of up-to-date technology should be integrated into the curriculum. Teachers need access, opportunity and the time to participate in professional development activities that promote the use of technology in schools.
Strategies that help promote computer equity: *
- Talk about the computer and the software in a gender-neutral way.
- The Logo turtle is referred to as an "it" rather than a "he."
- Make an effort to reduce the abstractness of the software and the computer.
Teachers can demonstrate an abstract concept using a concrete example.
- Encourage the use of advanced software by all students.
- Change the social environment around the computer.
Let students choose whether they want to work independently or collaboratively.
- Ensure that the computer is physically accessible.
Some students may require alternative input devices such as switches or voice activation; other students may require large screen monitors, speech output devices.
- Include persons from minority groups, females, and students with disabilities as computer helpers.
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* (Sanders & McGinnis, 1991)_______________________________________________
SnapshotJust after the first snowfall, Shira's family moves to Maine. Although records haven't arrived yet, Mrs. Bouchard, Shira's science teacher, realizes that Shira will need some assistance in completing science assignments. Shira is able to control her wheelchair, but she has minimal use of her right hand and limited ability to use her left hand. Mrs. Bouchard speaks with Shira's foster mother, who reports that Shira's previous school had considered referring her for an assistive technology evaluation with an occupational therapist, but that the family had moved before the evaluation could occur. "With your permission, I'll refer Shira for an evaluation here," Mrs. Bouchard says to Shira's mother.
At the evaluation, the occupational therapist asks Shira to type using a variety of input devices:
- keyboards (a large one that has a big grid on it for the keyboard and a miniature keyboard);
- a large button switch that activates a keyboard on the screen;
- a type of mouse that can be switched to Shira's head so that she does not have to use her hands.
Shira and her family decide that Shira can use a standard keyboard but that a specialized software, word prediction software, will be used. When Shira wants to begin a word with word prediction software, a list of commonly used words and phrases appears. Shira can choose the one she wants to use from the list.
_______________________________________________________Choosing Software: Equity Considerations*
- Is it educationally relevant?
- Is it easy to use?
- Is there stereotyping?
- Are violent behaviors or actions portrayed?
- What academic demands are required of students?
- Can students physically access it?
- Can the software be modified to meet the needs of students and teachers.
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*Adapted from Sanders & McGinnis (1991).
~~~~~Equitable Use of Computers by Teachers
- Computers must be available to teachers who want to use them.
- Time must be available for teachers to use computers.
- Computers are physically accessible.
- Professional development opportunities are available to train teachers to use computers.
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The equitable use of computers by teachers means that all teachers should have access to computers for instruction, recordkeeping and professional development. Teachers can take courses using computers and communicate with other teachers and with scientists and mathematicians using the Internet.
MEASURING UP
Equity Considerations for Technology
- Do all students and staff have access to technology education and up-to-date equipment?
- Do all students and staff have an opportunity to learn about technology and equipment?
- Are computers and software accessible to all students and staff?
- Has software been selected so that it is free of stereotyping and bias?
No matter what policies are decided, the implementation must take place in the classroom. Classroom teachers should be helped to develop awareness that the equity issue deserves their attention.
Policy can set the conditions for effective administration and practice, but it can't predetermine how those decisions will be made. Administrative decisions can reflect policy more or less accurately and can set the conditions for effective practice, but it can't control how teachers will act in the classroom at a given point. Practice can reflect knowledge of more effective performance, but this knowledge isn't always consistent with policy and administrative decisions. (Winfield & Woodard, 1994, p. 8)
Student attitudes toward a subject are strongly influenced by the classroom teacher. Teacher attitudes toward a subject also strongly influence how students perform.Students' attitudes toward mathematics and performance on reasoning tasks were most positive in the schools with the most positive teacher attitudes toward students and mathematics instruction. A teacher with science anxiety only reinforces the misperceptions of a child who may come from an environment in which science is perceived with distrust, and the methodology and knowledge of science are considered incomprehensible. (Beane, 1988, p. 17)
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Equity Standards Teachers use teaching strategies appropriate for students in diverse classrooms and are sensitive to the differences and perspectives of diverse populations.
Teachers provide opportunity for students to understand and value diversity.
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Strategies:
- Teach students to appreciate the diversity of others.
- Ensure that materials on bulletin boards and in display cases provide a full range of role models for students.
- Choose speakers and resource persons who encourage equity and provide role models for all students.
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Equity Standards Teachers and students have personal interactions that reflect mutual respect.
All school activities are geared toward greater inclusiveness.
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Strategies:
- Encourage teachers to make a conscious effort to interact equitably with all students with regard to the quality of interactions with all students.
- Include all students in both noncompetitive and competitive mathematics and science extracurricular activities.
- Assign student helpers such as audiovisual aides and classroom messengers without regard to student status.
MEASURING UP
Equity Considerations for School Structure, School Climate, and
Classroom Practice
- When working with students and parents, do teachers positively reinforce students' abilities and interests regardless of their race, culture, gender, disability or economic position?
- Does communication with all students reflect high expectations?
- Do teachers use the same language and joke in the same manner with all students?
- Do teachers and administrators take advantage of personal contact with parents to discuss efforts to ensure equity in the instructional program?
- Are equitable standards for academic performance used for the evaluation of all students?