Engaging in Equity-Oriented Mathematics Teaching Together: A Tool to Support Mentor and Teacher Candidate Learning

In this article, we report on mentor teachers’ and teacher candidates’ experiences using the Asset-Focused Co-Noticing Tool (ACT) during instruction as they work to center the mathematical contributions of marginalized students. We analyze interviews with 16 mentor teachers and 19 teacher candidates from four universities and report on teachers’ descriptions of opportunities to learn about equity-oriented instruction when using the tool. Our findings suggest that ACT has the potential to effectively orient teachers to one another and to issues of equity. However, the asset-focused assumptions of ACT do not replace teachers’ existing ideas about equity, students, or mathematics. Rather, ACT appears to create opportunities for collaborative inquiry around teachers’ developing ideas about equity.