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Creators/Authors contains: "Chao, Theodore"

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  1. Digital Mathematics Storytelling (DMST) is an innovative educational approach that leverages the power of storytelling to connect mathematics with community, cultural, and family identities. Through this method, educators help youth and teachers develop critical digital media literacy, addressing the educational and societal impacts of digital media as well as fostering mathematical exploration. This poster presents the ways that a DMST workshop for youth who have recently migrated to the U.S. (voluntarily and involuntarily) opened up space for the exploration of mathematics, digital, and cultural identities and literacies as connected to the ongoing aftereffects of colonization. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 23, 2026
  2. Beswick, K; Morony, W (Ed.)
    Digital Mathematics Storytelling is a construct I’ve used to elicit mathematics stories within multiple communities in multiple countries. The framework, based on the idea counter-storytelling, has come from multiple iterations of digital mathematics storytelling workshops from youth and mathematics teachers. In this paper, I reflect on what I’ve learned about the power of storytelling for connecting mathematics to community, cultural, and family identities. But I have also seen how digital media can become weaponized, particularly in the ways it has created a new form of consumerism. In this paper, I make the argument that digital mathematics storytelling not only helps to elicit narratives around mathematics identity, but also helps forge a new critical digital media literacy within our field of mathematics education. 
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  3. Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)
    In this plenary discussion, Dr. Chao presents his research framework and reflections from engaging in Digital Mathematics Storytelling within Black, Asian American, and Asian American communities in multiple countries. The framework, based heavily around storytelling, counter-storytelling, and Critical Race Theory, has been employed as a workshop to elicit mathematics video stories from youth and mathematics teachers. Here, Dr. Chao reflects on what he’s learned from these workshops and how he’s started to recognize not only the power of storytelling for forging mathematics and community identities, but the dangers to our society because of social media and weaponized uses of mobile video everywhere. He ends by calling for a new critical digital media literacy within our field of mathematics education. 
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  4. Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)
    In this research study, we detail how Digital Mathematics Storytelling, in which youth create video stories detailing the mathematics knowledge existing within their families and communities, can actively create counter-stories to the model minority myth. Through intergenerational video storytelling in historic Asian American communities, the research team and participants used a community participatory action research and narrative inquiry framework to engage elementary and middle-school aged youth in mathematics-based storytelling that not only detailed the painful effects of the model minority myth but also showcased that mathematics identities within Asian American communities can be rich and joyful. 
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  5. Lischka, Alyson; Dyer, Elizabeth B.; Jones, Ryan Seth; Lovett, Jennifer N.; Strayer, Jeremy; Drown, Samantha (Ed.)
    This research report analyzes the process of engaging 18 youth in urban emergent communities to enact Digital Mathematics Storytelling to explore their mathematics identities. The youth, in grades 7-11, engaged in the process of crafting and sharing their digital mathematics stories within two week long summer camps. Using a Participant and (Re)design Research Methodology, the research team explored how the constructs of Digital Storytelling, Mathematics Identity, and Storytelling can help us better know how to craft experiences that connect to youth knowledge. 
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  6. Olanoff, Dana; Johnson, Kim; Spitzer, Sandy M. (Ed.)
    During the COVID-19 pandemic, many urban schools relied on community centers with existing computer labs and high-speed internet that could provide in-person support for a small number of children engaging in online learning. Using a digital storytelling approach, this research report analyzes the mathematics identities of 14 informal adult educators. Situating the stories shared though Critical Race Theory counternarratives, this study enables participants to ground their narratives within their own spaces of power–to tell and forge their own digital mathematics story. Because informal adult educators are not family members nor school-based educators, they often are invisible variables in conceptualizing a child’s mathematics learning. This research seeks to elicit their mathematics stories and understand how to enactment digital mathematics storytelling through listening to how the community positions and visions math. 
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