Webinar Series
Teaching Mathematics with Compassion
Date+Time
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The MƒA Equity Webinars Series invites nationally recognized educators to share ideas that support equity within STEM. Following an interactive presentation by the speaker, Master Teachers have the opportunity to discuss how these ideas might be applied in their own school environments in small groups. Teachers from MƒA, other Master Teacher programs, and people interested in learning more about MƒA are invited to attend.
In this talk, Dr. Geillan Aly will introduce the Compassionate Math Framework, which attempts to address a significant need in mathematics education, namely that learning mathematics is both an emotional and intellectual act. The goal for Compassionate Math is to help teachers work through or around the emotional challenges of learning and teaching math so that their students can be their best mathematical selves. The idea is to bring the affective (emotional) side of learning math to the forefront, a side that is all too often forgotten. This includes thinking about how anxiety and identity affect our efficacy as teachers, especially through the lens of equity and social justice, and how that contributes to limiting our mathematical achievements. In this talk, Dr. Aly will share the Compassionate Math Framework and lead teachers through newly designed reflective exercises to help them tap into the emotional struggles they and their students encounter while learning or teaching mathematics.
Dr. Geillan Aly is a mathematics educator and professor at the University of Hartford who received her Ph.D. in Teaching and Teacher Education and a Master’s in Mathematics from the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on the emotional side of learning mathematics and includes how computer-centered learning has affected students’ abilities to control their learning environment and how meditation may reduce students’ mathematics anxiety. Underlying all of Dr. Aly’s teaching and research is a dedication to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice in mathematics education. She enjoys traveling, seeing live music, and is an avid chef. Aly is also a wife and mother of a beautiful boy. They live near Hartford, CT.