Keynote Speakers

Robert Q Berry III

Robert Q. Berry III is president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), for the 2018-2020 term of office. Robert Q. Berry III is the Samuel Braley Gray Professor of Mathematics Education in the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia with an appointment in the Curriculum Instruction and Special Education. Berry teaches in the teacher education program and graduate-levelmathematics education course. He is a former middle school teacher and was twice named teacher of the year. Equity issues in mathematics education are central to Berry’s research efforts with four related areas: a) understanding Black children’s mathematics experiences (mathematical identities and agency); b) measuring standards-based mathematics teaching practices; c) unpacking equitable mathematics teaching and learning; and d) exploring interactions between technology and mathematics education. Berry has extensive experiences in-classroom observation and is the lead developer of an observation instrument, Mathematics Scan, which measures standards-based mathematics teaching practices. Berry has collaborated on the Children's Engineering Initiative in the Curry School of Education to use digital fabrication to incorporate engineering design principles into mathematics education. His most recent work has focused on using qualitative metasynthesis as an approach to understanding the mathematics experiences of learners.

Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer taught high school math to students who didn't like high school math. He has advocated for better math instruction on CNN, Good Morning America, Everyday With Rachel Ray, and TED.com. He earned his doctorate from Stanford University in math education and is the Chief Academic Officer at Desmos where he explores the future of math, technology, and learning. He has worked with teachers internationally and in all fifty United States. He was named one of Tech & Learning's 30 Leaders of the Future. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Eugenia Cheng

Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician and concert pianist. She is Scientist In Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and won tenure at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has previously taught at the universities of Cambridge, Chicago and Nice and holds a PhD in pure mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Alongside her research in Category Theory and undergraduate teaching her aim is to rid the world of "math phobia". Eugenia was an early pioneer of math on YouTube and her videos have been viewed around 15 million times to date. She has also assisted with mathematics in elementary, middle and high schools for 20 years. Her first popular math book "How to Bake Pi" was featured on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and "Beyond Infinity" was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2017. She also writes the Everyday Math column for the Wall Street Journal, and recently completely her first mathematical art commission, for Hotel EMC2 in Chicago. She is the founder of the Liederstube, an intimate oasis for art song based in Chicago. Her latest book, "The Art of Logic in an Illogical World" was released in July of 2018.


Keynote Abstracts


Robert Berry

Mathematics, Social Justice, & Actions

Teaching mathematics for social justice (TMSJ) creates the opportunities to situate mathematics content and concepts in contexts that allow students to use their cultural, social, and contextual resources to deepen their understanding of mathematics. Through deepening their understanding of mathematics, TMSJ provides students the opportunity to use mathematics to critique the world and advocate for social changes. In this way, TMSJ goes beyond merely stating the importance of connecting mathematics teaching and learning to lived experiences and interests; it positions learners as and to be actors in their world. TMSJ is critical for four reasons:

· Builds an informed society. Mathematics serves a role to inform both teachers and students about the lives of people, contexts, and conditions that may be different from their own.

· Connects mathematics with students' cultural and community histories. By connecting mathematics teaching and learning in students' cultural and community histories, TMSJ creates opportunities for deepening mathematical knowledge.

· Empowers students to confront and solve real-world challenges they face. Critical consciousness in mathematics teaching and learning supports identifying issues that are unjust and allows the use of mathematics as a tool to analyze, critique, and confront those unjust contexts.

· Helps students learn to use mathematics as a tool for social change. When teachers and students use mathematics to explore, understand, and respond to social injustices, they learn to use mathematics as a tool to transform inequities and create social change.

This session provides background on the purpose, strategies, and pedagogical tools for social justice as well as provide a framework for planning a Social Justice Mathematics Lessons (SJML). We will unpack a few SJML and discuss the social justice and mathematics objectives, and create a product and/or plan of action as a result of the lesson.


Dan Meyer

Math Without Mistakes

The math education community has worked to destigmatize mistakes in recent years, yet it continues to misdiagnose as a "mistake" what is very often purposeful student thinking. We'll learn about curriculum, technology, and pedagogy that celebrates that thinking instead, helping learners grow in their math identity and knowledge.



Eugenia Cheng

Inclusion-exclusion in mathematics: who stays in, who falls out, why it happens, and what we could do about it.

The question of why women and minorities are under-represented in mathematics is complex and there are no simple answers, only many contributing factors. I will focus on character traits, and argue that if we focus on this rather than gender we can have a more productive and less divisive conversation. To try and focus on characters rather than genders I will introduce gender-neutral character adjectives, "ingressive" and "congressive", as a new dimension to shift our focus away from masculine and feminine. I will share my experience of teaching congressive abstract mathematics to art students, in a congressive way, and the possible effects this could have for everyone in mathematics, not just women.