The Access, Agency and Allies in Mathematical Systems (A³IMS) project was designed to be a four-year collaboration between university mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) and mathematics teachers (MTs) with the goal of co-developing and researching an equitable system to support students learning of mathematics, as well as MTEs and MTs learning from their own practice. Our goal was to shift the discussion about educational reform from one of remediation to a focus on redefining and reallocating resources and partnerships within the classrooms, school, district, and society.

The project included the development and facilitation of a professional development (PD) component. The PD was built around five strands: Mathematics, Discourse, Culture & Community, Privilege & Oppression, and Action Research. Activities were selected and/or developed that addressed one or more of these strands.

It is the purpose of this website to share the refined set of materials we used in this project.

As a team, we understand these terms as follows:

Access

Resources (tangible and otherwise) and practices that enable students and teachers to participate in ways that are viewed by other members of the community as competent (in terms of mathematics learning and teacher professionalism).

Agency

Ability for individuals to take action or operate upon objects (tangible or otherwise) in a learning environment.

Allies

Co-invested in negotiating a locally situated sense of what equity means. Help, support, or act in solidarity with others in a particular effort.

Equitable System

A collaborative community in which mathematics teachers, students, and mathematics teacher educators, work together to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, building on teachers' and students’ strengths, rather than focusing on deficiencies

Activity

Used to represent the level of tasks that are documented in this website. An activity could take place during a portion of a class/professional development session to extending over multiple days or a semester.

Teachers

Used flexibly within the activity descriptions to represent the participants within the activities. We envision facilitators using the activities with in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, and even administrators.