AM-ME: Define Roles, Expectations, and Engagement Processes

Project introduction 

During the initial phase of the project, we prioritized establishing strong foundations through individual and group onboarding meetings​​. Individual meetings offered each AM-ME Research Group member a personalized orientation to the project’s purpose, goals, and timeline. These sessions also served as an opportunity to build early relational trust, introduce critical participatory action research (cPAR) principles, and solicit members’ initial reflections on math engagement. Following these individualized sessions, a group kick-off meeting was held to formally bring all members together​​. The group meeting reinforced project objectives, facilitated collaborative exploration of math engagement, and introduced key engagement and collaboration structures that would guide our ongoing partnership.  

Group norms and expectations 

Establishing shared norms and expectations was the central focus of our first group meeting​​. Using a structured facilitation process, members individually reflected on what supports successful collaboration, such as open dialogue, shared decision making, and constructive conflict resolution. Responses were synthesized into group norms and expectations through a collective activity that emphasized consensus and mutual accountability. These norms and expectations were anchored in the project’s guiding principles—shared decision making, collective ownership, mutual trust and respect, and tri-directional mentorship between researchers, students, and teachers—and were used to open every subsequent meeting to ground the work in community-built agreements​. The intentional co-creation and consistent revisiting of norms and expectations positioned all members as co-owners of the research process. 

Team building exercises 

Recognizing the importance of cultivating relational trust throughout the project, we embedded team building exercises at the start of every meeting​​. Exercises were intentionally designed to be interactive, movement-based, and game-like to maximize engagement, promote connection, and reduce hierarchical dynamics. These exercises included partner activities to build connections, small group competitions to foster teamwork and engagement, and individual creative exercises that concluded with group share-outs to support collective meaning-making. All exercises were structured to invite personal sharing and collective laughter​. Facilitation instructions for each exercise were developed to support replication and to ensure that team building remained a consistent feature of our engagement strategy. These instructions can be found at the beginning of every AM-ME Research Group facilitation guide.