Tracy E Dobie

• PhD in Learning Sciences
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Utah

Implementing challenging mathematics tasks in elementary classrooms is a foundational teaching practice that is known to be difficult for teachers. Yet, little is known about the challenges pre-service teachers (PSTs) experience as they work to develop this practice. Additionally, the importance of trusting relationships in schools is well establis...

Connecting university methods courses and teacher daily practice is a persistent challenge in teacher education. Another challenge is preparing teachers to enact equitable instruction that meets the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. We take on these challenges by supporting practicing elementary teachers to design case-based teac...

This article describes a collaborative self-study of seven early career mathematics teacher educators. Our collective group sought to improve our practice in, and enhance transparency around, supporting prospective teachers as they engaged in equity-based mathematics pedagogies. The collaboration evolved into a critical friendship and provided a sp...

In this article, we examine the promise of a popular set of sentence stems, “I notice” and “I wonder,” for fostering productive discussion in an online course for teachers. Drawing on teachers’ responses to one another’s classroom reflections, we look for evidence regarding how course prompts encouraging teachers to use these stems influence the ty...

As university instructors update modes of teaching and student engagement in STEM classes, concerns often arise about student resistance to different methods of teaching and learning. This research examines what it looks like from a student perspective to experience a shift in attitude by exploring the case of Dane, a white male student who changed...

Exploring language provides us with one approach to better understanding the practices and beliefs of a community. With advances in technology—specifically, computational text processing and machine learning tools—we can now examine written language on a large scale. In this study, we investigate the language of mathematics teaching and learning in...

This article explores how teachers can use the sentence stems “I notice” and “I wonder” to deepen professional conversations with colleagues, both in person and in online spaces.

Drawing on a larger, cross-institutional study that examines equitable elementary mathematics education, this article reports initial findings related to tensions that emerged for preservice teachers (PSTs) related to trusting students with open-ended, challenging mathematics tasks. Data composed of 194 PSTs’ written responses to a survey question....

Professional development programs today increasingly ask teachers to capture video in their own classrooms to share with peers. Yet little work has explored the nature of the videos that teachers produce for this purpose. This study takes a first step by looking inside a set of almost 200 videos collected by 84 K-2 teachers participating in one of...

We examine how the intertwined relationship between arguments and representations can provide opportunities for investigating pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Our context is pre-service elementary teachers who are engaged in discussions of open-ended hypothetical math and science teaching scenarios that were designed to elicit PCK in particular...

Language is key to how we understand and describe mathematics teaching and learning. Learning new terms can help us reflect on our practice and grow as teachers, yet may require us to be intentional about where and how we look for opportunities to expand our lexicons.

This research takes a sociocultural approach to the study of perceived utility value in mathematics. In particular, this research examines students’ values and considers the role that one’s values might play in ideas about the usefulness of mathematics. To highlight students’ values and perspectives on usefulness, this work uses a combination of se...

This research explores how adolescents conceptualize the usefulness of mathematics. Integrating sociocultural theory with the study of utility value, this study uses open-ended survey items and interview tasks to examine conceptions of usefulness among a group of predominantly Latinx middle school students. Findings reveal that students primarily c...