 their instructional experiences had to go back well as a matter of fact the cohort one the quality of instructional experience accounted for 95% of their responses students wrote about negative interactions with their teachers at a rate of four times their the positive interactions so what do students write about instruction there were experiences struggling to learn from unkind impatient middle school and high school teachers with little compassion for students and this is the rehumanizing of the students themselves despite the desire for better high school math teachers because they were young and experienced and disconnected from their students classroom interactions were described as being racialized and there was high praise for a teacher in a special development program for ability to understand ability to explain mathematics in a way that students can understand so it doesn't matter what your race ethnicity would be students are looking for opportunities for to have teachers that explain mathematics in a way that it can be understand understood when it came to motivation and self-concept which is another one of the main things it says students wrote about fear of looking a sounding dumb or unintelligent during instructional time and commitment to perseverance and hard work and moving forward and dedication to taking personal responsibility and owning the role in being successful by studying and focusing on work so those were some of the things that they wrote about now in cohort to cohort two of you remember with a set of students who were in goal going to be enrolled in the elementary education program the factors cited most often were the same as cohort one quality of instruction and motivation and self-concept but what is different in their results is the relationship between between their perceived positive and negative interactions with their teachers the numbers of reported negative and positive interactions were almost equal whereas with the other students the negative interactions were four times the positive interactions okay also unlike cohort one many of these students had taken four years of mathematics while in high school and they exhibited a relatively higher level of self-confidence and persistence and perseverance in doing mathematics so it was it was a difference in and and and how they felt that they can do the mathematics so a lot of self-concept self-efficacy was very important in their case in cohort to what were some of the students I entered algebra one I gras some concepts and struggle with others my teacher did a poor job of thoroughly explaining some concepts I received to see in my freshman year I vile to myself that I would always pay attention in math class and always ask questions from sophomore to senior year I completed math with the big and then another said freshman year I took algebra and absolutely loved it me and my teacher were always really close and that really had a positive effect on my math experience for that year junior year the teacher and I did not really click but I still received an eight so what happened with that student is that there was a determination that regardless of what the relationship with teacher was hopefully most mostly positive that that student was determined to do well just okay and this was the last set of comments about standardized tests students in both cohorts were very aware of the relationship between performing well on standardized math tests and how the results could be used to make high stakes decisions that would influence their course options a life course options some students develop the love hate relationship with mathematics which ultimately cause anxiety with respect to standardized tests and doubt in their ability to do well on mathematics assessment tests now what about the experiences of successful african-americans and sim what do we learn from the literature well an article by Williams in 2012 found that the majority of experiences of successful african-americans and sim took place within their communities and were mediated by family members of the community members so that might suggest that the more african-americans that you have in stem that if this is the experience of those who are successful then perhaps that's one way to fill the pipeline and then McGee 2015 found that african-american preservice teachers who had positive early experience in mathematics reported black male fathers and close male relatives as their first mathematics teachers and these studies suggest that early experiences of african-americans in stem were less likely attributed to experiences in formal school environments at least this what these research shows but it doesn't help to add their good experience in formal settings so three different groups of african-americans with different early experiences in mathematics especially student-teacher interactions and the level of motivations and self-concept led to three different life options outcomes that were related to the context in which they experienced their mathematics teaching and learning achievement gaps between racial ethnic groups exist however in addition to just paying attention to the gap researchers and practitioners should focus on understanding how learners perceive or explain their own achievement gap and a manifestation of systemic inequalities and inequities in educational systems that seem to be in a continual state of reform I think that's that's it so there is a need to generate more understanding about how national education policies that carry broadly defined high stakes consequences influence the mathematics learning and achievement of all students over time and especially for those for whom equity of opportunity and equality of outcomes seems perpetually elusive questions yes ma'am 2006 yes yeah oh she wanted to know in cohort one did they begin in 2016 or 2006 yes it was yes because I was there I was their teacher other questions yes ma'am yeah yes it it's still elusive and I and I to be honest I really don't know how much of that 20 percent was explained by their letters but part of the research was to find out you know whether or not the students had something to say about their experiences that wasn't explained in one of in one of those nine any of those nine factors and I really wanted to hear from them yes yes yes mm-hmm psychological yes yes dinner come on down here and answer some of these questions one thing about that cohort two we have a elementary education program that focuses on math and science and so in our recruitment efforts we seek to admit students to that elementary education program who have done well in mathematics who've taken the math courses and also in terms of their affect in terms of that they are not afraid of it can you repeat the question just I think with cohort two the difference is that they had been normed to a lot of standardized tests by that time and so even though they had the same level of anxiety that they reported the same level of maybe disengagement or poor affect they didn't attribute it to themselves as much as they attributed it to testing and the environment and they were more aware of the effect of testing and standardization on them so they attributed it to outside sources and not inside sources I think that's the difference whereas with the first cohort it was just a little bit after nclb and so I don't think it was standardized tests were as um they hadn't gone through as many standardized tests as the second cohort so that's maybe why they attributed it it to their own abilities and I might add too that court court one um had been conditionally admitted to a business program and they were um they were in a summer bridge program so they had to perform well during the summer or uh they may not be admitted to the university so they were kind of in that situation as well yes I did not notice any regional differences um that's one reason why I reported um the variability of where they and the diversity of where the just and that's 28 now I I want to caution this was a um an initial study we don't want to make these broad uh inferences based on a sample size of 28 but I thought it was very interesting so uh if we repeat the study and we find that you know these uh results are consistent you know then we can make some broad but it was very interesting just to do this for a first time but I want you to know that I am fully aware of the sample size here well I was one of the teachers and so uh I I had been teaching in a developmental program for 20 years and it was the type of developmental program where we did teach the elementary algebra for the students who were coming in but we would also loop with them and teach the courses as they moved into the mathematics department so they felt very comfortable um with me and with the other professor who was teaching the course and that was the and that was the idea um we wanted to um and this is what this is what I've experienced there is that we wanted them to feel like we were other mothers and fathers and we were going to take care of them and make sure that they accomplish what they needed to accomplish in order to get into the business program they all got in and we followed them you know we just didn't just stop with the uh bridge program at the end of the summer we followed their progress during the fall and and into their freshman year to make sure that they were because eventually they had to take calculus as well in this business program well thank you so much I know we've gone over time and I appreciate you uh staying with this throughout this but thank you very much and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening and the rest of the week I really like your stuff I really like your stuff it's all very preliminary yes that's what i'm talking about it was fun when you called and asked me I thought yeah because you saw that and