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Pedagogical Possibility and Black Mathematicians’ Storytelling: Teachers’ and Students’ Reactions to Digital Math Stories

Wed, April 23, 9:00 to 10:30am MDT (9:00 to 10:30am MDT), The Colorado Convention Center, Floor: Ballroom Level, Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3

Abstract

While racialized perceptions of mathematics and its practitioners persist, we propose that engaging teachers and students with stories of diverse mathematicians may expand their views of who can do mathematics and what this entails. To these ends, we report findings from a larger study on the impacts of sharing digital stories of Black mathematicians with K-8 teachers and students on their perceptions of mathematics and mathematicians, as well as the videos’ potential for fostering mathematics engagement. Through thematic analysis of focus group interview transcripts, we identified disparities between students’ and teachers’ responses to mathematicians’ racial backgrounds and to the videos’ mathematical content—informing our understanding of how social and political contexts influence teachers’ and students’ sense of possibility and potential.

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