The Influence of Co-teaching on Marginalized Elementary Students’ Mathematics Performance
Date
2024-01-12
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Abstract
This single case study explores the influence of co-teaching on marginalized elementary student performance in mathematics. Marginalized communities historically perform poorly on standardized tests. There is a need for an intervention model that responds to the diverse needs of marginalized populated classrooms. Co-teaching is a model of teaching that supports a greater ability to personalize learning and support complex diverse classrooms. Whilst co-teaching has been shown to be effective, there is little research on how co-teaching influences students’ learning. When assessing students, authentic assessment has been shown to support the learning and sensemaking process for learners, as opposed to a standardized test. Thus, it is important that this study integrated understanding student success within a co-taught classroom by incorporating authentic assessment compared to a standardized test. The study explored the instructional processes that linked co-teaching to students’ mathematics performance using qualitative and quantitative data. To gain an in-depth understanding of the complex dynamics of a co-taught classroom, the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was utilized to guide data analyses. The CHAT framework encapsulates a sociocultural constructivist understanding which corresponds to the diverse marginalized population within the co-taught classroom. The analysis established from these methods offered a comprehensive insight of co-teaching mathematics processes that directly influenced students’ mathematics learning and performance. The findings from this exploratory case study highlight three major themes. The first thematic finding was that co-teaching allowed for flexible group work to personalize learning. The second thematic finding was that time and space were shared between co-teaching and assessment, allowing for more formative assessment that was in real-time and ongoing. This led to the co-teachers’ perceived professional learning in assessment practices. The final thematic finding was that although there were low expectations from the co-teachers, student participants achieved a higher level of mathematics performance. The higher level of mathematics performance amongst marginalized students compared to the low expectations of their teachers may attribute to the co-taught environment that enabled flexible group work and formative assessment.
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Keywords
Co-Teaching, Marginalized Students, Assessment, Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT)
Citation
Papoff, L. R. R. (2024). The influence of co-teaching on marginalized elementary students’ mathematics performance (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.