Teresa K. Dunleavy, Ph. D.

About Me

I joined the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College in the fall of 2015 as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education. One of my main roles involves working with teacher candidates as the Co-Director of Secondary Education [Mathematics]. As a former high school mathematics teacher, I will always identify as a teacher and a learner. I am delighted to continue to learn and grow professionally as a mathematics teacher educator. I do this work because I know that all students can be successful in mathematics, given significant opportunities.

During the 2019-2020 school year, I will participate as a Mathematics Teacher Education Fellow with the Center for Inquiry and Equity in Mathematics. My work as a Mathematics Teacher Education Fellow will grow the collaborative work that I have with two other mathematics teacher educator colleagues- Dr. Maisie Gholson, University of Michigan and Dr. Alison Marzocchi, California State University, Fullerton. Together, Dr. Gholson, Dr. Marzocchi and I are exploring what our students learn about themselves when engaging in identity-based assignments in our mathematics teacher education courses.

I am Co-Principal Investigator with PI Dr. Heather J. Johnson on The Recruitment and Preparation of Next Generation STEM Teachers. With this NSF Noyce Track 1 grant funded for 2019-2023, we seek to recruit and prepare STEM majors for a career in teaching science and mathematics.

During the 2017-2018 school year, I participated in the Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows program with the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University.

In the Fall of 2017, I and two MNPS mathematics teachers, Shannon Reider and Lizi Metts, along with a mathematics colleague, Jennifer Lovett from MTSU started the Mathematics Teachers’ Circle of Middle Tennessee. We bring together mathematics faculty, mathematics education faculty, mathematics teachers, and mathematics college/graduate students to engage in mathematical play. We have had a very successful first two years with over 150 different colleagues and friends coming together to engage in mathematical play. Join us!

In April 2017, I received a grant from The Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: “Focus Group Research on the Recruitment, Preparation and Retention of Next Generation Black STEM Teachers.” I have used this grant to work with Dr. Heather J. Johnson and Dr. Nicole M. Joseph to build relationships with mathematics, science, and education faculty at HBCUs, including Spelman and Morehouse Colleges and Fisk University.

My broader research interests include analyzing equitable mathematics teaching practices and understanding students’ perspectives on their mathematics learning. I seek to investigate practices that support classes to move toward equitable teaching and learning outcomes. I am also interested in understanding more about teaching practices that support the development of student discourse and attend to status issues in the classroom, in particular through the use of Video Club and video analysis. My research methods entail collecting and analyzing data, including video and audio recordings, interviews, classroom artifacts, and curricula. I utilize qualitative methods to analyze data across contexts and timescales in order to understand how interactions support learning.

In line with my research interest to study teacher learning through Video Club and video analyses, I was PI on a small-grant project investigating the discursive practices of high school Integrated 1 teachers. I explored how teachers’ discursive practices were striving toward equity. In the first phase of the project, teachers were interviewed about their teaching beliefs. During Phase 2, each teacher was observed for 3 class periods, during which their class was video recorded and they tagged (selectively archived) interesting discursive moments. During Phase 3, each teacher and I watched video excerpts together, in order to make sense of what the teachers learned about their practices. I imagine this project growing into a broader look at opportunities for teachers to engage in Video Clubs in order to learn about their teaching.

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/teresa-dunleavy

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/departments/tl/index.php

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