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1. Project adelante: An anti-deficit professional development program for university mathematics instructors

   Adiredja, Aditya; Civil, Marta; Jarnutowski, Becca (October 2024, RUME Proceedings)

   Cook, S; Katz, B; Moore-Russo, D (Ed.)

   In this report, we share the design of a year-long professional development program for university math instructors that we developed and refined as the Anti-deficit Learning and Teaching Project (Adelante). The program is a community learning project wherein minoritized students, STEM peer mentors, and math instructors (graduate students and instructional faculty) build relationships as they share their knowledge and experiences with race, gender, and mathematics. Culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billing, 1995) frames the goals of the community learning in terms of deep mathematical knowledge, cultural knowledge, and sociopolitical consciousness. The program activities are inspired by the Funds of Knowledge for Teaching project (Moll et al., 1992) wherein teachers are offered opportunities to build meaningful relationships with students and their communities. An anti-deficit perspective (Adiredja et al., 2020) guides the learning experience for all participants. Not only are minoritized students assumed to have cultural and intellectual assets for learning, but the project also aims to dismantle deficit master narratives (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) about these students and their capacity to learn. Instructors worked on explicitly challenging deficit narratives about their students as they engaged in the program’s activities. The project also takes an anti-deficit approach to instructor development, focusing on their individual growth and agency, joy in teaching, and mental health. We also position ourselves as learners to the experience and wisdom of the staff and students at the university cultural centers. The core activities for the PD engage teachers to: (a) participate in five PD meetings on anti- deficit teaching and Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) teaching method; (b) lead a five-day math summer bridge workshop in Pre-Calculus, Calculus I, II, Vector Calculus, or Linear Algebra immediately following the meetings; (c) participate in critical conversations about race and gender in STEM with students at the cultural centers; (d) conduct a semi-structure interview with one of their students from the summer workshop about their STEM experience; and (e) participate in group reflection meetings debriefing their experience in the activities. Preliminary analysis of two of the three cohorts of participants found that most instructors developed a more humanizing approach to their teaching and their students (Gutiérrez, 2018). IBL helped instructors to explicitly challenge deficit narratives about minoritized students in the classroom, wherein most observed their students engaging in deep mathematical reasoning. Interviewing one of their students also shifted deficit narratives that developed in the classroom for some instructors. The workshop served as a space to try out previously learned teaching ideas (student centered teaching) without constraints from curriculum and assessments. Doing so reinvigorated many instructors’ passion for teaching, especially those who are more experienced. 

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2. Returning to disrupting deficit narratives: Funds of knowledge beyond curriculum

   Adiredja, Aditya; Civil, Marta (October 2023, University of Nevada, Reno)

   Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)

   We examine the potential for instructor-led student interview in disrupting narratives about minoritized university students and their families. This approach was inspired by a critical component of the original Funds of Knowledge for Teaching project (FoK), the home visit, which involved ethnographic interviews with students and their family to learn about their lives. Study group reflections with project teachers and researchers led to the teachers’ examination of biases and disruption of deficit stories about students and their families (Tenery, 2005). Two frameworks guided the design and the analysis of the study. The anti-deficit framework for students from minoritized groups (Adiredja, 2019) prioritizes unpacking students’ existing understandings and resources for learning, and explicitly constructing counter-stories about students and their mathematics. The study also interprets the results of the study from a socioecological perspective (Louie & Zhan, 2022). Story construction is attributed to the individual, the learning community they are in, and the broader societal context. The data comes from a larger project focusing on engaging university instructors in community learning project focusing on race, gender, and mathematics (NSF DUE 2021313 IUSE). The project began in the summer and the interview occurred in the following Spring. Six participants interviewed a student of their choice, and four attended a follow-up debrief meeting. Results showed that participants gained novel insights into their students’ lives. The focal case, Zaynah shows that the interview can also change an instructor’s deficit story about a student and their mathematics into an anti-deficit story. Zaynah’s post-interview description of her student, Maria, went from someone who had “weak algebra skills” and was “just kind ofthere,” to a student who had a well-researched and articulated academic and life goals, and a “passion” that Zaynah “knew nothing about.” Zaynah accepted that math “wasn’t [Maria’s] thing,” and that “she can and will do the math” to achieve those goals. The anti-deficit framework and the socio-ecological perspective rejected a simple narrative of a deficit-oriented instructor who changed after the interview experience. Zaynah is not a deficit-oriented instructor. Her description of her other students in the workshop—all women of color— were positive, with no mention of deficits. Instead, it is a more complex story of the interplay of narratives about mathematics and students of color, and the impact of the interview with a student and the role of the community in shifting deficit stories. It is showing promise of applying FoK project’s core principles in undergraduate mathematics beyond curriculum design. 

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3. Constructing Instructors’ Classroom Practices from Students’ Survey Responses

   Adiredja, A P; Kale; B; Jarnutowski, B (August 2025, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, SIGMAA on RUME.)

   Cook, S; Katz, B P; Melhuish, K (Ed.)

   This preliminary report shares an outcome from a summer professional development (PD) activity with university instructors. Instructors participated in four PD meetings, then immediately taught a five-day summer workshop using inquiry, working primarily with first-generation minoritized students. While instructor participants’ exit interviews of the project identified their experience in the summer PD as pivotal to their development, we know little of how students experienced the instructors’ teaching during the workshop. Our analysis focuses on two items from student post-workshop survey wherein students shared their feedback of their instructor and their experiences more broadly. This analysis allowed us to get a good sense of the instructors’ individual practices and revealed convergence in their practices. Pedagogically, instructors utilized group work and deemphasized direct instructions, while prioritizing students’ engagement in discussions and struggling through conceptual ideas. Relationally, instructors were responsive to students’ mathematical needs and created a respectful, safe, and welcoming classroom environment. 

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4. Instructional decision making in a gateway Quantitative Reasoning course

   https://doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.17.1.1451  

   Budhathoki, Deependra; Foley, Gregory; Shadik, Stephen (January 2024, Numeracy)

   Grawe, Nathan D (Ed.)

   Many educators and professional organizations recommend Quantitative Reasoning as the best entry-level postsecondary mathematics course for non-STEM majors. However, novice and veteran instructors who have no prior experience in teaching a QR course often express their ignorance of the content to choose for this course, the instruction to offer students, and the assessments to measure student learning. We conducted a case study to investigate the initial implementation of an entry-level university quantitative reasoning course during fall semester, 2018. The participants were the course instructor and students. We examined the instructor’s motives and actions and the students’ responses to the course. The instructor had no prior experience teaching a QR course but did have 15 years of experience teaching student-centered mathematics. Data included course artifacts, class observations, an instructor interview, and students’ written reflections. Because this was a new course—and to adapt to student needs—the instructor employed his instructional autonomy and remained flexible in designing and enacting the course content, instruction, and assessment. His instructional decision making and flexible approach helped the instructor tailor the learning activities and teaching practices to the needs and interests of the students. The students generally appreciated and benefited from this approach, enjoyed the course, and provided positive remarks about the instructors’ practices. 

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5. I Was Scared and Excited to Do The Work: Rehumanizing Mathematics through Lesson Study at a Latine-Serving Institution

   Gutiérrez, R; Ortega, O; Lahme, B; Ford, B (August 2025, International journal for lesson and learning studies)

   Purpose: Mathematics instructors seek to address the well-being of students who are Indigenous, Black and Students of Color who have experienced mathematics classrooms as harmful spaces. Lesson study (LS), which engages multiple instructors at once, is a viable tool for enacting institutional change. This study investigates one US university mathematics and statistics department implementing a rehumanizing mathematics (RM) framework and especially how one AfroLatina member experienced the work. Changes in their instruction sought to better support Latine students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The study sought to understand what meaning faculty members made of their work. Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study of one university mathematics and statistics department that engaged in several cycles of LS to learn and implement the concept of RM in their classrooms. Data draw from faculty member responses to a Google Form and a 60–90 min interview. Inductive and deductive coding (Saldaña, 2012) were used to generate findings. Findings: Findings indicate mathematics and statistics department members found LS made the RM framework more tangible and actionable. Zarai found the work both exciting and scary, as she grappled with what it meant to question mathematics and center the most vulnerable students, do the work as a woman of color and feel exhausted from the work. As a case study (Yin, 2017), the findings are not generalizable. Rather, they describe the phenomenon and what were salient features for the participants (faculty members). Research limitations/implications: Limitations include that participants were surveyed and interviewed one year after receiving RM professional development and 8 months after their first LS cycle; relied upon Google survey forms and interviews where participants self-reported their experiences, and all but the first author are members of the department. To address memory issues, we returned to Padlet responses offered during the RM workshop and, during interviews, prompted participants with documents they had created in the LS cycle to jog their memories. We ameliorated department member biases by having the first author conduct interviews and lead analyses. This study raises several issues for researchers studying RM/STEM in other spaces (e.g. departments with less expertise/commitment to equity) and the role of context (e.g. university departments other than mathematics) and students (who are not Latine). It highlights the value of introducing LS to examine the learning and meaning-making for participants. Practical implications: For professional developers, understanding the range of responses that faculty members had around a single activity offers opportunities for participants to pause and reflect on their identities or the meanings they are making, which could lead to greater empathy for colleagues and practices that support their collective reflections and actions. For mathematicians/scientists interested in rehumanizing STEM, case studies of faculty members with different backgrounds and different meanings of the experience might prompt them to consider how context and identities play out locally. Social implications: Many people have experienced mathematics in dehumanizing ways. This study highlights the efforts of one mathematics/statistics department engaged in LS to rehumanize mathematics, which could help citizens identify more robust definitions of equity for themselves. Additionally, such cases could help individuals identify strategies for navigating the political and personal aspects of equity work, even if not related to mathematics. Even for those who do not share identities with people featured, case studies can highlight why colleagues might experience intense emotions around equity-oriented work, catalyze greater empathy towards them and increase collective equity commitment. Originality/value: Empirical results on LS and mathematics have centered on K–12 teaching and learning; empirical studies on RM in college and/or university settings have focused on students’ experiences. We still know little about how university instructors might make sense of the RM framework or implement it in their teaching. This is the first study of RM practiced by a university mathematics department. Understanding how university mathematicians made sense of an LS model for learning about RM is important both for understanding how LS influenced the learning and application of RM and for highlighting the experiences of AfroLatina faculty. 

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