Practice Equity as a Math Volunteer
Report from a Volunteer Training Workshop
Researchers who study math anxiety know that it interferes with learning. But what is the cause of math anxiety, and why does it affect some people more than others? What can tip the balance for a math learner towards success?
Marisa Berenbaum, Math Coach, Cambridge Street Upper School
When a college teacher observed Marisa Berenbaum, now a math coach for the Cambridge Public Schools, working on a math problem, he said “Wow! You draw your math” her initial reaction wasn’t positive “I was so trained to hide that,” she says. But that professor’s remark, and appreciation of her visual orientation, allowed her math identity to shift. What he changed was “the way I saw myself as a mathematician,” says Berenbaum.
She used this epiphany as one of several illustrations of how math identities are shaped at a Cambridge School Volunteers (CSV) workshop for volunteer tutors and classroom volunteers on December 15.
For adults as well as K–12 students, a person’s math identity can be shaped in ways that set up expectations for success or failure. Assumptions made about a student’s math ability, based on what a teacher or tutor thinks they know about the student’s mathematical understanding, deserve to be questioned, and rebuilt through the process of developing a relationship with a student that allows them to share what they know and wonder about math.
“What are the [implicit] messages you might be sending to students about who holds authority and who holds value?,” asks Berenbaum. To replace assumptions harmful to student learning, Berenbaum shared information about equity-based practices that can support math learning and confidence—a simple example is to take the time to understand a student’s name; not just its correct pronunciation but its significance, and to share one’s own name and its significance. Sharing and valuing first names is just one example of reciprocity that can help make a tutoring relationship one of trust rather than unbalanced authority.
Equity-Based Practices that Support Mathematics Learning and Confidence
She urged the twenty or so tutors and classroom volunteers who attended the workshop to be open to a true understanding of a student’s experience in math. For example, a student’s different way of doing a math problem should be explored and validated, especially in a classroom. Significant adults, who may have been educated elsewhere, may have taught them different problem-solving methods than those used in their classroom. Rather than dismissing methods not in use in the school, adults can support a student’s confidence in their own math learning by showing curiosity and respect for different methods.
Illustrative Math, the curriculum used in most CPS schools, relies on what are called instructional routines. These routines are methods of questioning and discussing math as a class that takes the focus away from rote memorization. In Grades 6–8, Illustrative math includes routines such as
Notice and Wonder
Group Presentations
Poll the Class
Which One Doesn’t Belong
Berenbaum walked workshop participants through one such routine, a “Notice and Wonder.” These simple questions—”What do you notice?” and “What do you wonder?” about the image, transformed and unpacked a problem of calculation of volume of a box. The exercise demonstrated how allowing students to respond to the image with a series of questions can undercut the fear and lack of confidence that many associate with math.
One tutor in attendance said, following the session, that she would be more conscious of “Asking more questions that attempt to open up/provide background on the problem the student is trying to solve, instead of just questions that go straight to the solution.”