The use of questions within in-the-moment coaching in initial mathematics teacher education: enhancing participation, reflection, and co-construction in rehearsals of practice

ABSTRACT

Managing mathematical discussion is known to be challenging for novice teachers. Coaching within student teacher rehearsals of teaching has been shown to develop mathematics teaching practice, but can be time consuming. To examine how coaching using questions could assist novice teachers to promote mathematical thinking and discussions within time-constrained programmes, videos of rehearsals, reflective debriefs, and student teacher surveys were collected across a range of courses over 4 years. Findings included that student teacher roles in rehearsals were enhanced through coaching with questions and co-construction was enabled. Coaching questions exposed effective practice, particularly in relation to orchestrating mathematical discussion, enabling student teachers to reflect, discuss, make decisions, and immediately trial teaching strategies. Questions appeared to lengthen rehearsals but improved their effectiveness through enhancing participation and enabling co-construction of meaning. Findings indicate that questions used in coaching of rehearsals inform and empower novice teachers, essential factors within initial teacher education for equitable and ambitious mathematics teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Mathematics teacher education
• instructional practices
• coaching
• equity

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative fund administered by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. It is grounded in the collective work of the Learning the Work of Ambitious Mathematics Teaching project, led by Glenda Anthony and Roberta Hunter and whose members are Jodie Hunter, Peter Rawlins, Roger Harvey, Tim Burgess, and the authors. We are grateful to these colleagues for our partnership and ongoing discussions and learning over the length of this study. Particular thanks go to Roger Harvey for his collaboration in the teaching and data gathering that have contributed to this article. Thanks also to Farzad Radmehr for assistance with managing the data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative [grant number 3000018986].

Notes on contributors

Robin Averill

Robin Averill’s research interests include exploring equitable approaches within mathematics education and school leadership, particularly in relation to practices culturally responsive to indigenous Māori learners.

Michael Drake

Michael Drake’s research examines effective teaching and learning of mathematics, and teacher learning within initial teacher education and professional development.

Dayle Anderson

Dayle Anderson’s research encompasses mathematics and science education, with a particular focus on the nature and influence of teacher beliefs and development of knowledge for teaching.

Glenda Anthony

Glenda Anthony’s research focuses on the challenge of designing professional learning experiences for mathematics teachers and teacher educators towards improved classroom practices productive for student learning.