Jenny Langer-Osuna – The active and collaborative math classrooms – Stanford Education Series #3

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About:

• Dr. Langer-Osuna’s research focuses on the nature of student identity and engagement during collaborative mathematical activity, and the ways in which authority and influence are constructed in interaction. 
• Recent work has focused on developing theoretical and analytic tools to capture the construction of marginalization and privilege in patterns of student engagement, and the spread of ideas in student-led collaborative work. 

Research Interests

Collaborative Learning | Curriculum and Instruction | Diversity and Identity | Elementary Education | Equity in education | Gender Issues | Math Education | Professional Development | Race and Ethnicity | Research Methods | Standards | Teachers and Teaching | Technology and Education

Can off-task be on-track?: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0031721719846892

Possible topics to explore:

• Active, inquiry mathematics classrooms.
• Identity development in the classroom
• Group discussions around math problems instead of just worksheets…

Possible Questions:

1. Tell me about your environment growing up (If your childhood had a smell, what would it be?)
2. Was there a teacher or teachers who had a particularly strong influence on your life? Tell me about them.
3. What is obvious to you (about education, teaching or learning) but many others don’t see/understand?
4. What did you want to be when you grew up?
5. Tell me a little about your research and how you got interested in that.

Identity and math classrooms

1. 1. Why is identity important to you?

• Especially math identity?

2. The interactive math classroom… what is that? How is it different?
3. What kind of classrooms are enabling students to see their identity as strong mathematicians?
   1. What hinders that? 
4. How do good math classrooms look and feel different from the bad ones?
   1. What are the best math teachers doing differently from the average ateacher?

Can off-task be on-track?

1. 1. Collaboration in math… that’s cheating right?
   2. How can off-task be on-track?

• Some research suggests that off-task talk can support collaboration by alleviating boredom, supporting emotional regulation, negotiating status within-group, or extending work in new directions. -2019

2. When should teachers intervene off-task conversations?
   1. When should they allow them to go on?

Future

1. What excites you now? What is next?