Teaching with Compassion

Bring socio-emotional learning (SEL) to your math class and transform your teaching and your students' outcomes.

Book group program / keynote / workshop

99% found sessions valuable

96% would attend again

93% found session inspiring

15+ years of experience

Teaching impacts students' willingness and ability to engage with math.

The instructional version of the “Working through math trauma” workshop for students.

Help faculty work through or around the emotional challenges of student learning.
Learn to address the socio-emotional barriers to success in math.
Support students so they can be their best mathematical selves.

Reflective exercises incorporated throughout the program to help faculty understand how math to help you tap into the emotional struggles you and your students encounter while learning or teaching mathematics as well as practical strategies will be shared for faculty and staff to implement.

Dr. Geillan Aly

is a mathematics educator and former award winning Assistant Professor who received her PhD 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 mathematics anxiety.

Dr. Aly has been teaching at the university level for over ten years and, without sacrificing rigor, brings a personalized math learning experience to the classroom through active learning methods and by centering students’ emotional well-being. She is very familiar with the Common Core Standards and has experience teaching mathematics to Middle and High School students.

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. Geillan is also a wife and mother of a beautiful boy. They live near Hartford, CT.

This program is for you if you want to...

establish a compassionate learning space that emphasizes rigor.
learn how equity and social justice is a part of math learning and acknowledge the systemic issues behind why learning math is fraught with challenges.
understand how learning math is both emotional and cognitive.

What you'll learn

How to use the Compassionate Math framework to understand students' struggles.
How the history of math curricula contributes to math trauma.
How to support students' emotional growth in math class.
Practical strategies to implement immediately to improve teaching.
How equity is a critical part of mathematical success.

Location & Logistics

Location

This talk can be either remote or in-person
Format

Keynote (passive audience) or workshop (activities) are both possible.
Multiple directions

Content can be modified to address teachers / instructors / faculty, tutors, or advisors.

Full Abstract

In this workshop, the affective (emotional) side of learning math, a side that is all too often forgotten, will be brought to the forefront. Dr. Geillan Ally will introduce the Compassionate Math Framework and the Cycle of Benign Neglect, both of which attempt to address a significant need in mathematics/STEM education, namely the acknowledgement that learning mathematics is both an emotional and intellectual act.

The goal for Compassionate Math is to help faculty work through or around the emotional challenges of learning and teaching math so that students can be their best mathematical selves. 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 own mathematical achievements.

Reflective exercises to help you tap into the emotional struggles you and your students encounter while learning or teaching mathematics as well as practical strategies will be shared for faculty and staff to implement.

What people are saying...

You are my hero.

I definitely got something I can take away to improve my online instruction.

Not only applicable to math but applicable to all fields and harnessing your full ability to achieve anything you want out of life

A must attend for anyone committed to teaching and learning at any level.

The session with Geillan facilitates a fresh start on how we should start building an inquiry learning classroom to promote equity.

Very inspirational and insightful. This session helped me understand and confront my mathematical anxiety and the factors affecting my math identity. I hope to use these strategies in my own future learning and as a maths educator. The session was very engaging and thought provoking and challenged my assumptions about math and what makes a maths person. I especially enjoyed writing the love letter to myself about my math experience and confronting math problems in the future while managing my math anxiety.

She was engaging, informative, and very understanding of the teaching profession. She made the day fun and enjoyable.

Refreshing and attainable! Practical

A reminder of every student's humanity. As a teacher, I forget that my students are struggling not because they don't try, but because they have a lot going on in their brains. To reach them, I need to think about their emotional well-being first.

I’ve never addressed my maths trauma the way that I just have. This was very helpful for me now and future teacher me. Thank you!

Relevant and provocative ideas for improving classroom practice!

Beautifully paced, kind, supportive and connected to truths

Introspective workshop allowing participants time to reflect and share what foundational skills are important for classroom success

Very Informative. Provide good skills to engage whole class.

It was a workshop full of great techniques and knowledge on Mathematics that will relieve my imposter syndrome. I am glad I attend the event because my perspective on math has shifted, and I am more confident going into my next math class, knowing I can succeed is just the methods and mindset I apply to it.

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