Educational change doesn’t come easy: lead teachers’ work as change agents

Equity in mathematics education

“…A number of studies that focus on teaching, demonstrate a diverse range of equity-supporting pedagogies, including: culturally responsive mathematics pedagogy, using mathematics to interrogate issues such as food security (Ramsay-Jordan, 2021 ); teaching for active learning aligned with an inquiry approach, where students inquire into mathematics and teachers inquire into students’ mathematical ideas (Tang et al, 2017 ); pedagogies for mixed ability groupings, which support a more expansive view of students’ mathematical capabilities (Hunter et al, 2020 ; Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2022 ); pedagogies that integrate mathematical activities with language and culture (Nortvedt & Wiese, 2020 ); and rehumanizing pedagogies (Joseph et al, 2019 ). Different students may require different pedagogies, for example, disabled students (Hunt et al, 2022 ), black girls (Joseph et al, 2019 ) or migrant students (Nortvedt & Wiese, 2020 ).…”

“…The literature also demonstrates the difficulty of making equity-supportive changes in pedagogy. For example, Meyer and Slater-Brown ( 2022 ), in their study of mathematics lead teachers’ incorporation of mixed ability grouping into school-wide practices, found that only two of six lead teachers were able to make changes to their own practice and only one was able to implement school-wide practices. Gardee ( 2019 ) shows how, while some teachers offer identities of affiliation to learners, supporting their participation in mathematics classrooms, others offer identities of marginalization, which serve to exclude learners from mathematics, thereby pointing to the importance of both social and pedagogical relationships between teachers and learners in supporting learners’ mathematics identities.…”

Faculty evaluation in higher education: a theory-of-action case study in Vietnam

“…Second, my research goal was to provide implications for improving faculty evaluation practices, and PBM is a proven methodology for improving educational practices (e.g., Donald, 2013;Eastham, 2017;Finnerty, 2020;Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2020;Nock, 2017;Slater-Brown, 2016). Though most PBM studies are in New Zealand, using PBM to understand and improve educational practice in an Asian context or among Asian participants is promising (Hannah et al, 2019;Robinson & Lai, 1999;Svay, 2017).…”

“…The first methodological contribution is about PBM and how it can be applied. Most PBM research examines educational issues in Western, or developed, countries such as New Zealand or Australia (Donald, 2013;Eastham, 2017;Finnerty, 2020;Hannah et al, 2019;Lalwani, 2019;Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2020;Nock, 2017;Slater-Brown, 2016). A few PBM studies in other contexts have explored the copying habits of Chinese students (Robinson & Lai, 1999), the curriculum design in Cambodian universities (Svay, 2017), and the Japanese leaders solving student incidents (Hannah et al, 2019).…”

Teachers as educational change agents: what do we currently know? findings from a systematic review

“…This research literature identified four main factors that may enable or inhibit teacher leaders' change efforts. These are: 1) principal or school leadership support; 2) buy-in to the role by practitioner colleagues; 3) access to training and professional development; and 4) perceived autonomy and teacher leaders' own positioning in the role (McKinney et al, 2015;Meyer & Slater-Brown, 2020;Poekert et al, 2016). To begin with, school leaders can show acknowledgment and recognition of teacher leaders' roles as change agents by providing them with classroom release time to work with colleagues, remuneration for the role, or other organizational support such as timetabling in a way to enable them to observe and support colleagues (Brown & Flood, 2019;Chew & Andrews, 2010;Gaffney & Faragher, 2010).…”