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1. Building elementary school teachers’ cultural competencies through co-design of mathematics tasks.

   Lyublinskaya, Irina; Okita, Sandra; Walker, Erica (September 2024, NCTM Research Conference)

   Over the course of a year, this case study explored the influence of professional development of New York City elementary teachers collaborating with researchers to design culturally relevant mathematics activities. Results showed that this co-design process enhanced teachers' cultural competencies, deeper understanding of culturally responsive mathematics pedagogy, and awareness of students' cultures. It also fostered greater agency in integrating culturally responsive practices into mathematics curriculum. In addition, teachers began to shift focus from school constraints to a culturally sensitive lens. 

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2. Learning trajectories of teachers’ cultural competencies in teaching mathematics with robots in elementary school

   Coward, Chamarra A_O; Cheung, Marcus_Yuen-Yiu; Lyublinskaya, Irina (April 2025, AERA)

   This study employed a mixed methods research design to explore the influence of a year-long professional development (PD) on the 1st grade team of elementary school teachers' cultural competencies as they integrated culturally relevant robot coding activities into mathematics instruction. Culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy (CRMP) promotes academic success by fostering conceptual understanding, leveraging students' cultural knowledge, building social connections, and engaging mathematics from a social justice lens through the core elements of demand, relevance, and agency. The results indicate that the PD sessions improved some of teachers' cultural competencies, such as competency in modeling high expectations and in drawing on student culture. In addition, teachers consistently demonstrated strong cultural competencies in establishing supportive classroom norms, promoting inclusive environments, and recognizing student differences. The observed CRMP scores reflect teachers’ growth trends in the demand dimension of implemented mathematics tasks. However, they struggled implementing mathematics tasks that reflect authentic relevance and agency, even though all three core dimensions of CRMP were evident in the designed tasks. Teachers' self-reports indicated a shift toward more student-centered instruction, which is consistent with increased tasks’ demand. 

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3. Data Fusion Insights on Indigenous-Serving Teachers’ Implementation of Culturally Responsive Computing

   https://doi.org/10.70725/759223rdbocc  

   Yan, Wei; Parekh, Priyanka; Amresh, Ashish; Prescott, Paige (January 2025, Journal of Technology and Teacher Education)

   Indigenous communities remain among the most underrepresented groups in computing and STEM fields, facing systemic barriers to equitable participation in computer science (CS) education. This study examines how Indigenous-serving teachers, through a sustained professional development (PD) program, design and implement culturally responsive computing (CRC) curricula in Indigenous-serving schools. Guided by the research question: How does sustained CS professional development inform the design of culturally responsive computing curricula by experienced CS teachers in Indigenous-serving schools? We employed a natural language processing (NLP) data fusion approach that integrates text mining and qualitative thematic analysis to investigate how teachers incorporate Indigenous knowledge into computing instruction. Our findings reveal three emergent themes in teacher learning and lesson design: Creating opportunities to access culture through computation, Leveraging Research and Critical Thinking Skills to Critically Engage Students with Computing, and Reflection, refinement, and professional growth through ongoing collaboration. These themes underscore the impact of CRC on bridging cultural traditions with computing, fostering engagement, and enhancing Indigenous students’ sense of belonging in CS. By supporting teachers in developing culturally relevant lessons that integrate storytelling, traditional arts, and computational thinking, this research contributes to the broader discourse on inclusive CS education. This study informs future efforts to expand Indigenous student participation in computing by highlighting the role of culturally sustaining pedagogy in professional development and curriculum design. 

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4. Resisting marginalization with culturally responsive mathematical modeling in elementary classrooms.

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-023-01542-y  

   Turner, E.; Aguirre, J.; Carlson, M. A.; Suh, J.; & Fulton, E. (January 2024, ZDM-Mathematics Education)

   Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action. It can disrupt power and status hierarchies in the classroom that contribute to structural and ideological marginalization. This paper describes ways teachers connected their teaching of MM with key components of a culturally responsive mathematics teaching framework. Analysis synthesizes data from an innovative, research-based professional development for elementary teachers to support teacher learning of equity centered, culturally responsive MM instruction. Data sources include end of year teacher interviews, and professional development discussions from 19 teachers at four geographically, racially, and culturally diverse sites. Findings focus on how teachers connected their teaching of MM with key dimensions of culturally responsive mathematics teaching, and affordances and challenges related to resisting ideological and structural forms of marginalization. 

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5. Culturally responsive and equity-focused computer science professional development.

   Codding, D.; Mouza, C; Pollock, L; Sheridan, S. (January 2019, Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education)

   The field of computer science continues to lack diversity, which has led to new efforts toward increasing access to computer science among all students. In order to address the underrepresentation of minoritized youth in computer science, we developed and delivered a culturally responsive and equityfocused computer science professional development model for helping teachers apply culturally relevant pedagogy alongside computer science principles within their classrooms. This paper focuses on how teachers experienced and processed this infusion of culturally relevant pedagogy into computer science professional development. Findings suggest that the ways in which participating teachers’ contexts and experiences influence the ways in which they conceptualize culturally relevant pedagogy and plan to implement it into their classrooms. 

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