Benefits of APT

Promoting Equity and Inclusion

Teachers can use APT to create a classroom culture in which every student’s voice matters. Giving students an opportunity to be heard is particularly important for students with marginalized identities; for these students, equitable opportunity to learn requires that they have a sense of full membership in the community of learners.

Classroom discussion provides a perfect opportunity to foster feelings of inclusion and to disrupt existing patterns of inequality (The New Teacher Project, 2018) when it provides the opportunity for students from all backgrounds, languages, histories, and customs to share their ideas and experiences when learning new content.

Equitable opportunity to learn requires that students have a sense of full membership in the community of learners. 

As you watch, see if you can identify any students who are not fully engaged in their work.

The teacher is continuing a fractions lesson on part and whole.

The clip above is from:

Multiplication of Fractions
Math • Grade 5

  • Things to notice

    The teacher notes at the outset that “we don’t really know 100% what we want to say yet, but we had some ideas about whole and part and how they are reflected in these problems.” In that simple statement, the teacher communicates that this is a community learning activity, owned by the class and not by the teacher. She then has students engage in a brief connecting activity: they share their thoughts about whole and part with a partner. In the brief forty seconds of discussion, every student acts as a member of the community by expressing their thinking. 


    The video reveals a level of confidence among students that comes from an inclusive classroom culture —both when they talk to the teacher and when they talk to each other. We see many of the other benefits of APT: several students explain their thinking to a partner who either disagrees, or who is unsure what to do. Explaining in this way is far more rigorous and demanding than solving the problem for oneself. 


    What is noteworthy is that every student in the classroom is engaged in thinking about the mathematics. They are all included in the community of mathematics learners attempting to better understand part/whole relationships. 

As you watch, consider the experience through the eyes of a particular student in the class. Would you feel that you were as much a part of the classroom community as every other student?

In this clip, students are listening to their teacher read a book about sleep. She has the students talk extensively in pairs as well as in the whole group.

The clip above is from:

Understanding Sleep
Language Arts • Grade 1

  • Things to notice

    The students are clearly not new to APT; they have internalized the norms and are accustomed to the routines. Students received a powerful, if unstated, message; every student has a right to speak, and if you have something to say, every student has a right to hear what you are saying. 


    Students also have the opportunity to connect their lived experiences to the classroom. Notice that the teacher distinguishes in her questioning between what happens in the book (an important comprehension goal), and what happens in their lives. By making room to hear about their experiences and those of their peers, students are given the opportunity to value their own voices and lived experiences, and to strengthen their identities.