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Assistant Professor Ruby Ellis Accepted into NC State’s 2022 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Institute

NC State College of Education Assistant Professor Ruby Ellis

Ruby Ellis, an assistant professor of mathematics education in the NC State College of Education, has been accepted into NC State’s 2022 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Institute.

The year-long Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Institute provides NC State faculty with skills, funding, mentorship and support to conduct training in teaching and learning as they design and implement a research project to study teaching and learning in their courses. The theme for this year’s institute is “Crafting Educational Innovation in Difficult Times.”

“Participating in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Institute will provide me with an opportunity to strengthen my research skills and to utilize those skills to engage in systematic scholarly inquiry of my teaching practices within a community that includes mentorship and support,” Ellis said. 

Ellis’ research project will focus on the impact of including multicultural mathematics activities on pre-service teachers’ cultural competence, self-efficacy related to teaching mathematics using culturally responsive pedagogical practices, teacher identity and pre-service teachers’ perceived impact on their future students’ identities. 

The activities will be introduced in her EMS 490: School Mathematics from an Advanced Perspective course, which focuses on a historical overview of subjects like algebra, geometry, statistics, probability and trigonometry. The course is a culminating experience for all mathematics education majors in the College of Education who intend to become secondary mathematics teachers.

Through her work, Ellis said she would like to better focus on significant cultural contributions from female mathematicians and mathematicians of color as well as better connect mathematics tasks to those contributions. Additionally, she hopes to create connections between the concepts of identity, agency and cultural competence and the role of teaching and learning mathematics.

“It is important for pre-service teachers to gain an understanding of the importance of culture in teaching and learning,” she said.