Toward a Humanizing Math Feedback Protocol: A CPAR Study with Black Women Math Educators in a DC Charter School

This dissertation investigates how instructional coaching influences teachers’ feedback practices and how feedback supports Black girls’ math identity development. Grounded in Culturally Responsive Teaching, Black Feminist Mathematics Pedagogies, and Culturally Responsive Poetry, the study explores how Black women math educators leverage shared identity to deepen their understanding of Black girls’ experiences in math class and implement culturally responsive strategies to adjust their feedback practices. The study employs qualitative methods, including teacher interviews, audio recordings from a coaching community of practice, informal classroom observations, and poetry written by 4th and 5th grade Black girls. Using Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), the study centers the expertise of both educators and students in co-constructing the community of practice, designing poetry templates, analyzing student poetry, and developing a culturally responsive feedback protocol. Conducted at a DC charter school, the study identifies barriers to implementing these strategies, such as the lack of explicit coaching on culturally responsive strategies, the culture of high-stakes testing, and hierarchical feedback systems. Findings reveal that coaching on culturally responsive feedback strategies and implementing a reciprocal feedback system through poetry improved the quality of teacher feedback adjustments, and teachers’ responsiveness to student poetry improved the experience of psychological safety for the Black girls in their classes. The study concludes with recommendations for adopting a culturally responsive instructional coaching model, incorporating a reciprocal feedback system into measures of teacher effectiveness, and integrating the arts in math classrooms. These measures aim to improve existing instructional coaching practices and to prioritize Black girls’ psychological safety and belonging in math classrooms.