As we start a new school year, one big challenge for teachers is how our education systems tend to focus on what students don’t know. From testing to course offerings to tutoring supports, our system compels math teachers to fix student mistakes and misconceptions and to initiate learning from a space assuming students lack knowledge. With a systemic focus on deficits, students can lack the confidence to meaningfully engage, and teachers must work hard to focus on the assets in students’ mathematical thinking.
A shift toward asset-based perspectives means starting with what’s already there or what is known instead of focusing on what’s missing or what is not known.
To start with what’s there, we must first learn to hear the reasoning and sense-making of the person or people we are communicating with. We ask questions or implement a task using asset-based approaches that recognize all students bring prior experiences, strengths, talents, and resources to their learning and can contribute meaningfully in an authentic learning environment. Student thinking is central and valued in an asset-based math classroom. In asset-based classrooms, the teacher provides student choices and facilitates discussions that amplify the ideas and strategies of student thinking, then aligns and builds those ideas toward the lesson’s content goals and learning progressions. To make this happen, we must consider the language, routines, and systemic structures we have in place and shift our focus to more asset-based perspectives.
One area we can consider in our classrooms as we start the school year is our classroom norms, which serve as the foundation for the ways students and teachers interact in learning mathematics. Let’s think together about what asset-based norms look like, how we might analyze our classroom norms to identify asset- and deficit-based perspectives in them, and how co-crafting norms can make them more asset-based.
Why are norms the foundation for setting the stage in our classrooms?
Our classroom norms set the parameters for the interactions teachers and students have in their classrooms. They define the expectations for how students should interact (with us and with each other) or not interact, what they should be interacting around, and our aspirations for those interactions. As we think about our norms and how they define the interactions we would and would not like in our classrooms, consider how those norms may invite students to share the assets they bring to class and how they might inhibit students in sharing those assets. Let’s look at an example.
How do your classroom norms support asset-based or deficit-based language?
Consider the two sets of norms below, with the original set on the left and the revision on the right. What asset-based or deficit-based perspectives do you notice in the original? How does the revision reflect a more asset-based approach?
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At first glance, the original norms are fairly strong and might be things you have written yourself! But the teacher in this class wondered a few things – did the first set of norms feel too individual? Does saying that math is about communicating implicitly marginalize students who may have communication barriers or challenges? The revised set of norms illustrate tangible ways that students can make use of the assets they bring to the classroom. As you reflect about the interactions you would like to foster in your classroom this year, consider how to modify or co-craft these norms with your students. This discussion can both highlight your expectations while simultaneously honoring students as contributors in cultivating the desired classroom environment.
What are the implicit messages in your classroom norms?
As the year starts, take a close look at the norms that you have hung on your wall, included in your syllabus, or posted on your online learning site. What are the implicit messages in those norms? How might a variety of learners – including multilingual learners, students with disabilities, students who are neurodiverse, students who are confident math learners, and students who are not confident math learners – be advantaged or disadvantaged by those norms? Do the norms invite ways of being as math learners that allow everyone entry? The beginning of the year is the perfect time to pause and identify norms you would like to have in your classroom. When we consider the needs of a wide variety of learners in this process, we are more likely to be intentional with our actions and accomplish our goals. No matter if it’s our first year or our thirty-first, we can all find new ways to incorporate more asset-based perspectives in our language, routines, and our school systems.
Asset-based perspectives can be transformative beyond your classroom
We’d love to join you on your asset-based journey with some of the activities, frameworks, and tips we provide in Transform your Math Class Using Asset-Based Teaching for Grades 6-12. In this book, we take a deep dive into what asset-based perspectives look like in the language we use in the classroom, the teaching routines we use everyday, and the systems that are built around our classrooms like our professional learning communities, assessment strategies, recognition and reward systems, and class structures. We consider how to identify deficit-based perspectives in these contexts and how to shift toward more asset-based perspectives. Along the way, we focus in on specific student populations and how we can leverage their assets in thoughtful ways to better serve each and every one of our mathematics learners.
Their new book, Transform Your Math Class Using Asset-Based Teaching for Grades 6-12 published by Corwin in July 2024.
