What Makes Equity-Focused Professional Development Effective? Insights from Mathematics Graduate Teaching Assistants

Calls for equity-focused professional development (PD) for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have grown as GTAs play an essential role in large-enrollment undergraduate courses and as future faculty members. However, there is a dearth of research on specific curricular design aspects that would be productive for GTAs. This study addresses this gap by examining mathematics GTAs’ perspectives on the curricular aspects of a PD program designed to support equitable and inclusive teaching practices. Building off Wiggins and McTighe’s curricular design framework, we employed surveys, interviews, exit tickets, and PD artifacts collected from 56 GTAs across three universities, and conducted a thematic analysis combining inductive and deductive coding. Four themes consistently emerged regarding the design features that most influenced GTAs’ learning: (a) Community and Collaboration; (b) Awareness Through Discovery; (c) Concrete Ideas and Examples Connected to Theory; and (d) Practicality and Actionable Takeaways. These findings highlight design principles for equity-oriented PD that resonate with GTAs that extend the curricular design framework. We discuss implications for developing sustainable, context-sensitive PD that cultivates equitable mathematics instruction and supports GTAs’ pedagogical growth.