From Colleagues to Critical Friends: Exploring Avenues of Professional Learning to Support Equity-Based Pedagogies in Mathematics Education

ABSTRACT

This article describes a collaborative self-study of seven early career mathematics teacher educators. Our collective group sought to improve our practice in, and enhance transparency around, supporting prospective teachers as they engaged in equity-based mathematics pedagogies. The collaboration evolved into a critical friendship and provided a space to study, reflect and supportively challenge our practices. We found that self-study methodology matched our motivation to improve our practice as teacher educators, while recognizing the contexts of our other professional and institutional obligations and upholding our own values. We draw upon a traffic roundabout as a metaphor for our experience in self-study, noting the ways it provided professional learning and moved our work with prospective teachers forward.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical friendship
• early career
• equity
• mathematics
• mathematics teacher educator

Acknowledgement

We thank Rhonda Kae Young, PhD, Chair and Professor of Civil Engineering at Gonzaga University for support in figure design.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).