Building on and Supporting Students’ Strengths

May 2021  

As we finish this school year, prepare for summer activities, and also begin plans for the next school year, we have an opportunity to reflect on the past year—its challenges and successes—and in particular on our students. I have been asking myself an important question: In what ways did we as teachers build on and support our students’ strengths in their learning of mathematics?

Students bring multiple strengths to the mathematics learning experience. They begin formal school eager and ready to learn, and with multiple strengths from their daily learning experiences. These strengths continue to grow if nurtured in both formal and informal learning environments. We must identify, foster, and value these strengths; support students as thinkers and doers of mathematics; and leverage students’ experiences, cultural perspectives, backgrounds, languages, and interests. This strengths-based approach will facilitate deepening mathematical understanding, helping students make sense of their world through mathematics.

One of the nine equitable teaching practices highlighted by Bartell and colleagues (2017) relates to drawing on students’ funds of knowledge, that is, what they bring to the learning experience. It is important to provide learning experiences and opportunities in which students build on and connect to resources and experiences from their home, community, interests, culture, and language. Funds of knowledge are an asset, not a deficit, and student context and ideas are valuable. We are reminded in Catalyzing Change in Early Childhood and Elementary Mathematics: Initiating Critical Conversations that we “should honor and build on the abundant knowledge that children, families, and communities offer” (NCTM 2020a, p. 48).

As students move from early grades to middle school, they continue to build their mathematics identity. We must continue to support their positive mathematics identity as they develop in their mathematical thinking and explore their world through mathematics. One’s mathematical identity continues to develop from adolescence to adulthood. Our persistent affirmation of students’ positive mathematical identities through their learning experiences, building on their strengths, will support them in developing strong and resilient positive identities.

What can we do? Although we could consider multiple areas, I offer four:

1. Identify our own strengths as teachers of mathematics.
2. Examine our beliefs about students and teaching and learning mathematics.
3. Engage in professional learning to understand strengths-based approaches.
4. Build a supportive, collaborative teaching community.

A starting point could be what Kobett and Karp (2020) describe as teaching turnaround one, identifying our own strengths as a teacher of mathematics, thinking of our work through an asset lens rather than a deficit perspective. They observed that when reflecting on instructional practice, we often focus on the things we are not doing well, our weaknesses. By focusing on strengths, we can leverage them to address areas perceived as weaknesses. In the same way, as we learn to identify our own strengths and continue to improve our instructional practice, we can become more adept at recognizing the mathematical strengths in our students, then build on those strengths and support our students in their mathematical learning.

Next, as I shared in the September 2020 President’s Message , we should examine our own beliefs about students and teaching and learning mathematics. Do we really believe that students can do mathematics, and do we understand how that belief affects student mathematical identity, agency, and authority? What do we believe about mathematics and about effective instructional practices that focus on a strengths-based approach? Do our assessment practices reflect a strengths-based approach, building on what students bring to the learning experience rather than a deficit view of what they do not know? As pointed out in Catalyzing Change in Middle School Mathematics: Initiating Critical Conversations , rather than identify and implement needed changes in our beliefs in isolation, let’s get support from our colleagues and various professional development opportunities in which we can confront, identify, and examine our deficit-based beliefs about students or their families and communities (NCTM 2020b, p. 23). This leads to our next area.

We must continue to engage in professional learning opportunities. Professional learning through deepening our own understanding and implementation of effective equitable mathematics teaching practices is key to ensuring that we approach teaching and learning mathematics through a student’s strengths. We can learn more about how to identify students’ strengths, how those strengths may vary in different contexts and with different content, and how to support students in finding their own strengths and building new strengths. According to Catalyzing Change in Middle School Mathematics: Initiating Critical Conversations , “This includes the use of culturally relevant pedagogy, building on students’ interests and knowledge, incorporating real-life experiences into the curriculum, and using practices that showcase students’ strengths” (NCTM 2020b, p. 36). Professional development should be ongoing, in collaboration with our community. It is experienced in myriad ways, including individual study, collaborative work, mentoring, coaching, co-planning, co-teaching, inquiry-based research (such as action research and lesson study), conferences, and webinars.

Finally, building our teaching community through the power of collaboration is essential. Our teaching community includes parents, families, and caregivers along with our broader mathematics education community. We need to partner with our English as a second language teachers, special education teachers, grade-level and departmental teachers, and other instructional support staff and administration to work together in approaching the teaching and learning of mathematics through a strengths-based lens. A strengths-based rather than deficit-based approach is essential not only within a classroom, grade level, department, or school, but also across districts, states, provinces, and nations. The collaboration must permeate the system for a systemic strengths-based approach to teaching and learning mathematics to reach each and every student.

As we continue our teaching journey, let’s consider ways we can build on and support our students’ strengths in their learning of mathematics. Then, as a community, let’s work together to make plans to get to know our students, identify their strengths, and then build on those strengths as they engage in mathematics. 

Trena Wilkerson
NCTM President
@TrenaWilkerson

References

Bartell, Tonya, Anita Wager, Ann Edwards, Dan Battey, Mary Foote, and Joi Spencer. 2017. “ Toward a Framework for Research Linking Equitable Teaching with the Standards for Mathematical Practice.” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 48, no. 1 (January): 7–21. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Kobett, Beth, and Karen Karp. 2020. Strengths-Based Teaching and Learning in Mathematics: Five Teaching Turnarounds for Grades K-6. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin; Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). 2020a. Catalyzing Change in Early Childhood and Elementary Mathematics: Initiating Critical Conversations . Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). 2020b. Catalyzing Change in Middle School Mathematics: Initiating Critical Conversations. Reston, VA: NCTM.