As exciting as the VMT environment is, the MLM project recognizes the need for other activities that value and build on students’ assets, experience, and mathematical selves. MLM seeks to support students to become effective collaborators, to feel capable and interested in math, to believe that they belong in math, to take risks, and to show up and persist.
Drawing on research in related fields, MLM encourages the use of many effective approaches, including: the 4H’s of Belonging-Centered Math Instruction by Jamaal Matthews, a life values writing exercise, connecting to underrepresented math exemplars, and routines such as “Notice and Wonder” (in both student problem solving and in teacher review of student work), and “Which One Doesn’t Belong?”.
These approaches fit into a Unit Zero, and are woven in throughout the year to sustain and build on the work in VMT.