Teacher Training in Error Analysis within Classrooms using an Error PVEST Model

Christopher Leatherwood

His work seeks to apply an ecological systems lens to study mathematics learning, explicitly within the context of student errors. To examine this topic, Dr. Leatherwood utilizes a mixed methods approach that include multiple surveys, teacher interviews, and direct classroom observations. This methodological approach is necessary because his work seeks to interrogate the complex system created by the interplay within multiple levels of an ecological system (specifically the micro, meso, exo, and macrosystem levels) at a specific moment in time. These moments are defined as error interactions in which a student commit an error, the teacher identifies this error, and an interaction occurrs in which the error is the focus. This specific context is important because students are often vulnerable when they potentially commit an error in a classroom. This vulnerability can influence their perceptions of themselves, their perceptions about others, and their perceptions of the content. In addition, metanarratives exist concerning racial and ethnic identity that contain stigmas and stereotypes associated with being Black and doing mathematics (Martin, 2006). These stigmas and stereotypes can be exacerbated when students commit errors and increase the potential vulnerability students experience during their educational journey.

About Christopher Leatherwood

Dr. Christopher Leatherwood received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy on June 17th, 2022. As a mixed-methods, interdisciplinary scholar of race, equity, and ecological systems, Dr. Leathewood draws on various analytic and interpretive methods to study how systems interact to influence teacher practices and student engagement and learning. He has received advanced training in quasi-experimental methods as well as qualitative and ethnographic methodologies. Using these skills, he asks and answers questions about (a) the relationship between students’ dispositions toward errors, racial identity, and growth mindset, (b) how these are impacted by macro-level messages about race, (c) how teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about errors could indicate either an acceptance of or rejection of broader metanarratives around race and ability and (d) how teachers’ orientations and dispositions toward errors influence their roles during discussions of student errors. Dr. Leatherwood’s teaching vision is one that has carried forward from his days of teaching middle school within the St. Louis Public School District. He firmly believes that an instructor’s role is not to impose his or her understanding on students but to draw out students’ inherent understandings. By doing such, Dr. Leatherwood can use these understandings as a foundation for moving forward. He also believes that students learn as much from their peers as their instructor, so he encourages cooperative learning in which students are accountable to each other.