{"id":8436,"date":"2025-08-26T15:57:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/?page_id=8436"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:37:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T19:37:54","slug":"identity-and-belonging","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/teaching-writing-at-bu\/writing-in-the-disciplines\/teaching-writing-in-math-and-statistics\/math-resources\/reflection-feedback-and-revision-in-mathematical-writing\/identity-and-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity and Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Objective: <\/b>Students will have the opportunity to identify and name their personal strengths, goals, and\/or fears within the context of their work as mathematicians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Key Terms: <\/b>Identity. Belonging. Representation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Timing: <\/b>These activities could work best if given at the beginning of the semester, both to help set the tone for the course and to help students feel comfortable in the course during the entire semester.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Conceptual Framework<\/h6>
Many students have difficulty imagining themselves as (successful) mathematicians. This can result from many factors, but it can often be tied with past negative experiences in mathematics courses, or from the lack of seeing people that they personally identify with in positions of power (eg faculty, teaching fellows, etc).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These activities are meant to help students identify their strengths (because everyone has some), so that they have something positive to hold on to during the course. Moreover, discussing goals, rather than weaknesses, can help students feel able to work towards the course learning outcomes, rather than seeing any perceived inherent weaknesses in themselves as barries that cannot be overcome. In addition, by openly discussing the feelings students have within the context of doing mathematics, and sharing those feelings (perhaps in an anonymized way), students can feel less isolated and more comfortable making mistakes and discussing their difficulties with their peers and the course instructor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Lesson<\/b><\/h2>\n

Part I: Feelings activity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Provide<\/strong> a framing for the students regarding the purpose of this activity, for example using the Conceptual Framework discussed above.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Consider<\/strong> setting up the activity so that students have the opportunity to share their feelings anonymously.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Provide<\/strong> the students with a structured way to share their feelings. See, for example, <\/span>this structure from Mathematical Explorations and Discrete Mathematics<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Share<\/strong> the results from the activity with the class. For example, you could create a word cloud using the responses, or some other visual depiction of the words that were chosen and the frequency that they appeared.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Part II: Strengths and personal goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Provide<\/strong> a framing for the students regarding the purpose of this activity, for example using the Conceptual Framework discussed above. You can choose to provide some example goals if you like. See, for example, <\/span>this framework from Discrete Mathematics<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. Have the students create<\/strong> a first draft of their strengths and goals to bring to class on a specified date.\u00a0 Tell them in advance that they will have the opportunity to share anything they chose to write about, but consider also telling them that they will not be required to share out to the class if they prefer not to.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    3. Allow<\/strong> the students to revise their strengths and goals before submitting them. They may have benefited from hearing from the students who did choose to share (parts of) their first draft during class time, and so may wish to revise their own draft accordingly.<\/span><\/li>\n
    4. Consider<\/strong> also allowing, or even providing opportunities for, students to revise their strengths and goals as the semester progresses.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Variations and Follow-Ups<\/h6>
      Consider using a free version of <\/span>Mentimeter<\/span><\/a> to collect anonymous student responses to prompts in the form of a word cloud, sliding scale, matrix, and many other options. Students use a phone or laptop to respond.<\/span><\/p>\n

      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

      Further Reading<\/h6>
      For more information on identity and belonging in mathematics education, see for example <\/span>Section 3.2.2 of the book Equitable and Engaging Mathematics Teaching, by Daniel Reinholz<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Objective: Students will have the opportunity to identify and name their personal strengths, goals, and\/or fears within the context of their work as mathematicians.\u00a0 Key Terms: Identity. Belonging. Representation.\u00a0 Timing: These activities could work best if given at the beginning of the semester, both to help set the tone for the course and to help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15811,"featured_media":0,"parent":8464,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15811"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8439,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8436\/revisions\/8439"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/teaching-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}