Clinical Experiences

Collaborative Research: Attaining Excellence in Secondary Mathematics Clinical Experiences with a Lens on Equity

This project is led by members of the Clinical Experiences Research Action Cluster (CERAC) of the Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership. The CERAC is a consortium of 27 universities and their school partners engaged in developing clinical experience models designed to build candidates’ facility with the Mathematics Teaching Practices (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014) and other equitable teaching strategies to promote secondary school students’ success in achieving college- and career-ready standards. The members of the project are designing and studying mechanisms to aid in the implementation of the following alternative clinical experience models:

• The paired placement model, in which two prospective teachers are paired with a single mentor teacher, allowing the mentor teacher to provide purposeful coaching and mentoring and the two teacher candidates offer each other feedback, mentoring, and support (Leatham & Peterson, 2010); and
• Co-planning and co-teaching model, which has been found to help teacher candidates gain greater pedagogical content knowledge and knowledge of students through collaboration and communication between teacher candidates and mentor teachers who plan, implement, and assess instruction together (Bacharach, Heck, & Dahlberg, 2010); and
• Methods course clinical experience modules: Clinical experiences for teacher candidates in partner schools that are well-tied to mathematics teacher preparation coursework are essential (Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, 2009; Forzani, 2014). Furthermore, offering clinical experiences integrated within methods courses is even more beneficial to teacher candidates’ development (Darling-Hammond, 2014). These modules integrate the mentor teachers and teacher candidate experiences for common learning opportunities.

The CERAC is answering the following research question: How does a continuum of collaborative and student-focused clinical experiences, including co-planning/co-teaching and paired placement fieldwork models, impact pre-service

teachers’ equitable implementation of the Mathematics Teaching Practices (NCTM, 2014) across institutional contexts?

The collaborative project is funded by the National Science Foundation Directorate for Education & Human Resources Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) – Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Development & Implement, I & II: Engage Student Learning Grant ID#s: 1726998, 1726362, & 1726853. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Project Personnel

Auburn University:

Marilyn Strutchens, Auburn University, PI; John Sutton, ResultED,

Evaluator; & Jeremy Zelkowski, University of Alabama, Consultant

APLU:

Howard Gobstein, APLU, PI; W. Gary Martin, Auburn University,

Consultant; Nathalie Dwyer, APLU, Administrative Assistant;

Other Partnership Teams

University of South Florida:

Ruthmae Sears, PI

Project Advisory Board Members

Marta Civil, Professor of Mathematics Education and Roy F. Graesser Chair

Associate Head for Entry-Level Instruction

Department of Mathematics

The University of Arizona

Keith R. Leatham, Professor of Mathematics Education

Department of Mathematics Education

Brigham Young University

John Staley, Coordinator of the Division of Research, Accountability, and Assessment

Baltimore County Public School System

Past President of NCSM

Dorothy White, Professor of Mathematics Education

Department of Mathematics and Science Education

Mary Frances Early College of Education

University of Georgia

Jonathan A. Wray, Coordinator of Secondary Mathematics

Howard County Public Schools

Past President, Association of Maryland Mathematics Teacher Educators,

Past President, Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Board of Directors, 2012-15

Selected Publications

Conway, B., Erikson, D., Parish, C., Strutchens, S., & Whitfield, J. (2017, October). An alternative approach to the traditional internship model. Paper presented at the Georgia Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, Eagle Rock, GA. Retrieved from

http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gamte/

.

Grady, M., Sears, R., Stone, J., & Biagetti, S. (2020). Using co-planning and co-teaching strategies to transform secondary mathematics clinical experiences. In W.G. Martin, B. Lawler, A. Lischka, & W. Smith (Eds.), The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: The power of a networked improvement community to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation (pp. 235 -256). Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Mangram, C., Clarke, P.A. J., Waller, P.P., Ellis, R. L., & Castro-Minnehan, C. (2020). Focus on improving clinical experiences in secondary mathematics teacher preparation. In W.G. Martin, B. Lawler, A. Lischka, & W. Smith (Eds.), The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: The power of a networked improvement community to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation (pp. 281 -292). Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Martin, W. G. & Strutchens, M.E. (2018). Improving secondary mathematics teacher preparation via a networked improvement community: Focus on clinical experiences. In M.E. Strutchens, R. Huang, L. Losano, & D. Potari (Eds.) Educating prospective secondary mathematics teachers. Monograph Series Edited by Kaiser, G. (pp. 27- 46). Switzerland: Springer.

Strutchens, M.E., Erickson, D., Sears, R., & Zelkowski, J. (2020). Clinical experiences for secondary mathematics teacher candidates. In W.G. Martin, B. Lawler, A. Lischka, & W. Smith (Eds.), The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: The power of a networked improvement community to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation (pp. 179 -198). Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Strutchens, M. E., Sears, R., Whitfield, J., Biagetti, S., Brosnan, P., Oloff-Lewis, J., Clarke, P. A., Stone, J. J., Erickson, D. R., Parrish, C., Conway IV, B. M., & Ellis, R. L. (2019). Implementation of paired placement and co-planning/co-teaching field experience models across multiple contexts. In T. Hodges, & A. Baum (Eds.), Handbook of research on field-based teacher education. (pp. 32-63). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-6249-8.ch002.

Strutchens, M.E., Whitfield, J., Erickson, D., & Conway, B. (2020). Fostering collaborative and reflective teacher candidates through paired placement student teaching experiences. In W.G. Martin, B. Lawler, A. Lischka, & W. Smith (Eds.), The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: The power of a networked improvement community to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation (pp. 257-280. Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Strutchens, M.E., Sears, R., & Zelkowski, J. (2020). Improving clinical experiences for secondary mathematics teacher candidates. In W.G. Martin, B. Lawler, A. Lischka, & W. Smith (Eds.), The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: The power of a networked improvement community to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation (pp. 199-209). Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Sears, R., Brosnan, P., Oloff-Lewis, J., Gainsburg, J., Stone, J., Spencer, C., Riggs, L., Biagetti, S., Cayton, C., Grady, M., Junor-Clarke, P., & Andreason, J. (2017). Using improvement science to transform clinical experiences with co-teaching strategies. Annual perspectives of mathematics education (APME) 2017: Reflective and collaborative processes to improve mathematics teaching. (pp. 265-273). NCTM: Reston, VA.

Yow, J. A., Waller, P., & Edwards, B. (2019). A national effort to integrate field experiences into secondary mathematics methods courses. In T. Hodges, & A. Baum (Eds.), Handbook of research on field-based teacher education (pp. 395-419). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Zelkowski, J., Yow, J., Ellis, M., & Waller, P. (2020). Engaging mentor teachers with teacher candidates during methods courses in clinical settings. In W.G. Martin, B. Lawler, A. Lischka, & W. Smith (Eds.), The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: The power of a networked improvement community to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation (pp. 211-234). Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Please see the following site for additional information: www.mtep.info/cerac