During the 2021-22 school year, we began a journey with an environmental scan— a survey tool designed to explore teachers’ past experiences and instructional philosophy. We dove into their perception of students’ attitudes towards learning math, belief in essential factors to making math instruction a success, and a description of the community surrounding each local school and district.

The results revealed varied responses but one common theme – most teachers had a negative experience as math learners. 

Past math challenges as students can significantly affect how teachers currently develop and deliver math lessons. For example, we found that the lack of confidence in their own math ability led to an over-reliance on scripted lessons. Other teachers opted not to take risks, fearing exposure in places where they continue to struggle with some math content. 

The 2021-22 Math Literacy Project, designed by Village Life Education, emphasized cognitive demand tasks paired with culturally responsive pedagogy as frameworks to create an environment for more engaged students.

These frames allow for student collaboration, encouraging student voice (and agency), and inspiring them to grapple with and embrace the challenges associated with various challenging word problems. In order to embrace this framework in their classrooms, teachers learned to face their fears and concerns first. 

The teachers during the project participated in several math tasks. They worked together to solve problems and experienced first-hand what it is like to collaborate and grapple together to reach solutions. (Boaler, 2020)

When we administered a post-project survey to assess the impact of the work on high-impact practices, participants concluded their math phobia does not preclude them from adopting a growth mindset and seeking opportunities to improve the instructional strategy and style.

Ready to invite this type of growth and development into your classrooms? Then it’s time to partner with Village Life Education to close the phobia and learning gaps in math for your students. The time is now! Reach out to get connected today.