Teacher Implemented Communal Learning in Math: Boosting Learning with African American Elementary Students

The current study examined lasting learning effects of communal contexts for 124 African American third and fourth-grade students using a mathematics fractions unit with students’ regularly assigned teachers. Teachers in two experimental conditions received training on implementing communally or individually structured fractions curricula, and a naturalistic control was included whose participants did not receive the intervention. Findings revealed that students in the communal condition outperformed those who learned individually, and students in both intervention conditions outperformed those in the naturalistic control group. Survey of communal home-socialization obtained a relationship with identifying fractions performance. Implications for facilitative effects of culturally informed learning environments and teacher training toward enhanced academic achievement are discussed.