Speakers and Abstracts

Keynote Session: 

Who's in Your Classroom?

What if the biggest barrier to learning math isn't the math?

Today's students are showing up to our classrooms carrying a lot. Cringe culture - the social cost of being seen trying too hard. The loss of faith in the promise of hard work. A job market that has them questioning whether any of this is worth it. And most of our courses weren't designed with any of that in mind.

Our 2026 NE-COMMIT Fall Conference at Smith College starts with the most important question we can ask today: who are the students actually in front of us, and what do they need from us RIGHT NOW?  We are handing the mic to students. Current math students from Smith College and Westfield State University will tell us directly what learning math feels like right now, what gets in the way, what actually helps, and what genuine welcome looks like from their side of the room. We will listen. Then we will roll up our sleeves and work through real classroom scenarios alongside student co-facilitators at our tables.

This is a community that learns by doing. Come ready to think, to be challenged, and to leave with something you will actually try. 

Read more about the student panelists here (coming soon)

Julie Wess (Maine Central Institute) 

Title: How tall is that statue, and why is that squirrel at the top eyeing me?

Abstract: When students are learning the basics of right triangle trigonometry, they start off learning sohcahtoa, the three ratios that define angle and side length relationships in right triangles. As they progress, this expands to solving for missing parts of right triangles. And inevitably, the question of why do I need this and how is it relevant to my life. 

For high school students, the learning can be dry and boring. To counteract this, I have a project that taps into their creative side and makes them explain all the math behind the answers they find. Students create a clinometer, work with a control set of measurements, and then go outside the classroom to find various triangle side lengths using their newly created tools. Along the way, they create a story around their measurements and document their work.

This process helps students who struggle with the mathematics work in a group, show their knowledge in a new way, and keeps them engaged as they weave a tale for me to read. Reducing their anxiety around math is an added bonus, as they discover they know more than they thought.

Marion Athearn (Lincoln School)

Title: Informal Writing as a Tool for Unlocking Student Voices and Understanding

Abstract: How do we empower students to authentically demonstrate what they know? Informal writing is an opportunity for students to explain what they know, how they know it, and how they mastered it. It is a powerful way to diversify the way you assess students, and offers an opportunity for students who have learning differences to demonstrate true subject mastery. In this hands-on session, we’ll explore how informal writing can serve as low-stakes formative checks, creative final assessments, and an effective strategy for moving students beyond textbook repetition and AI-generated answers. Bring your curiosity and a playful spirit! You’ll leave with practical tools and fresh inspiration to design assignments tailored to your courses.

Christine von Renesse (Westfield State University)

Title: Q&A for Educators new to Teaching with Inquiry

Abstract: Are you new to trying less lecturing and more active learning or inquiry? This session will provide a space to ask questions, share struggles, and find materials and ideas that already exist. 

Eva Politou (Harvard University) 

Title: Where Do You Stand? Mapping Instructor Mindset in Gateway Math Courses

Abstract: Research on undergraduate math instruction shows that instructors' relational stance toward struggling students—not just their beliefs about ability—shapes persistence and equity outcomes. Instructors who comfort students after a poor performance, rather than continuing to challenge them, unintentionally signal low expectations (Rattan, Good, & Dweck, 2012); and racial achievement gaps are roughly twice as large in courses taught by fixed-mindset faculty (Canning, Muenks, Green, & Murphy, 2019). This session introduces a "standards × support" framework, adapted from psychologist David Yeager's mentor mindset research, that distinguishes four instructor orientations: enforcer, protector, neglectful, and mentor. Rather than presenting this as a lecture, participants will physically position themselves along a spectrum in response to a series of statements about their own teaching practices—discovering their own tendencies before any framework is named. A reveal-and-reflect discussion follows, grounding the pattern in research and giving participants language to name and adjust their own feedback and classroom practices in gateway courses.

Rev. Cheryl M. Vallejo (Radford University), Maria Fung (Worcester State University) 

Title: Nervous System Tools to Regulate Emotions in Math Classrooms

Abstract: In this session, we will explore ways to help students and faculty regulate their emotions, learn how a dysregulated nervous system affects well-being and learning/teaching, and gain tools that regulate the nervous system. This leads to a more balanced state of mind and body, where a person is better able to succeed in their math classes (and life).

Andrew McIntyre, Kathryn Montovan (Bennington College) 

Title: Teaching Everyone at Once: A Concepts-First Curriculum

Abstract: Bennington College has only two full-time and one part-time mathematician. Under those constraints, we try to meet all the diverse needs of students at a liberal arts college, supporting computer science, the sciences, the social sciences, liberal arts and general citizenship, as well as allowing students to concentrate in mathematics. In trying to achieve this impossible task, we have been led to completely rebuilding the undergraduate curriculum, based largely on structuring around concepts and schema, rather than topics and coverage. The overall approach is constructivist and exploratory. In particular, we attempt to make single classes serve a wide variety of student interests and student levels.

Rather than attempt to explain the whole system, we will give a specific example, of a central exercise we use in an introductory math modeling and quantitative reasoning class. The exercise prods thinking on a number of difficult concepts, and ties together several themes of the class.

Cigole Thomas (Bates College), Hannah Klawa (Indiana University East), Shraddha Rajpal (Clemson University) 

Title: How Students Actually Use AI in Proof-Based Courses

Abstract: I will share my experience based on a recent study I conducted with my collaborators on the use of generative AI in proof-based courses. We will discuss different aspects of addressing AI use in proof-based courses and invite the audience to share their own perspectives on the use of AI. This study examines student use and perceptions of generative AI across three proof-based undergraduate mathematics courses: a first-semester abstract algebra course, a topology course and a second-semester abstract algebra course.  Drawing on survey responses and student interviews, we analyze how students engaged with AI tools, their perceptions of generative AI's usefulness and limitations, and what implications these perceptions hold for teaching proof-based mathematics.

Lauren Rose (Bard College)

Title: Mathematical Puzzles and Games: Building Belonging Through Active Learning

Abstract: In this session we will use mathematical puzzles and games to create active learning assignments that foster belonging, create welcoming environments, and level the playing field. Ideally the puzzles connect with the course material, but they can also be used as ice breakers, helping students to meet each other, develop mathematical habits of mind, and problem solving strategies. 

Dana Rowland (Merrimack College) 

Title: Midterm Adventures:  Using Escape Rooms to engage students

Abstract: Last spring, I designed an interactive "escape room" for the midterm assessment in a general education Puzzles and Games course.  Students worked in groups to collaboratively solve challenges to demonstrate the problem-solving skills they had developed over the first half of the semester.  During this session, participants will interact with a modified version of the escape room I used for that course, and we will briefly discuss ways that this activity might be adapted for use in other courses or for an extracurricular math club.