Teaching Mathematics with Women in Mind

Abstract

W e both work at institutions that have been awarded NSF ADVANCE grants. ADVANCE is a program that aims to develop systematic approaches to supporting academic women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. ADVANCE looks at universities and asks, “What support can universities provide to help women faculty members thrive in STEM?” We took that question to heart and asked ourselves, “What support can we provide in our undergraduate mathematics classrooms to help women students thrive in mathematics?” We decided to take a hard look in the mirror. This meant examining our own approaches to teaching and confronting the limits of our own education and preparation. Trained as mathematicians, we found our preparation for understanding how gender affects undergraduate mathematics classroom environments lacking. We turned to resources from psychology, sociology, and women’s and gender studies to better understand our own teaching. Our personal goal—it might not be yours—is to understand how gender bias influences our mathematics teaching and to explore concrete steps we can take to reduce the effects of that bias. We’ve asked ourselves why our classrooms should look different from the classrooms in which we were undergraduate students. After all, we are both women who were successful undergraduate mathematics majors and went on to earn Ph.D.’s in mathematics. Call it survivor’s guilt: we both know that we were able to “fit in” in mathematics when many other women could not. We could say, “Other women should do what we did and learn to fit in.” Instead, we are asking, “What should we do differently as mathematics instructors so that more women, who wouldn’t otherwise be successful, will be and will persist in the study of our subject?” We have to make a few stipulations. First, we believe teaching can be taught. Though trained as applied mathematicians, we both now do research in and teach mathematics education. Our work in mathematics education is guided by the belief that great teaching can be taught. This is contrary to what popular culture has us believe: often teachers are characterized as “born to teach.” Sometimes great teachers believe it too. There is something to that—in the absence of preparation for teaching, there are those who will become better because they experiment, reflect, and revise their own teaching. They do this on their own and end up keeping the best of their experiments and learning from the ineffective ones. We don’t mean to diminish the greatness of those who have figured out how to become great teachers on their own; we want to understand what they do in classrooms and teach others to do the same. As we explore changes to make in a classroom to be responsive to gender, we are thinking of explicit teaching choices. Second, we believe there is inherent good in giving more people access to undergraduate mathematics. This is a value we stipulate. You might not share that value, but if that’s the case, then you and we are aiming at different things. We’ve thought a lot about what kinds of good come from access to mathematics, and we believe that what might resonate most with our students is the access to fulfilling, higher-paying jobs that comes with advanced technological knowledge. Some may argue that this is not why we teach mathematics, but it Jessica M. Deshler is assistant professor of mathematics at West Virginia University. Her email address is deshler@ math.wvu.edu.