Two Middlesex CC Faculty Publish Article on Equity in the Classroom

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Middlesex Community College learned to work and teach in new ways. The efforts MCC’s Mathematics department put in to engage their students and build a sense of community in their online classes was the topic of an article published in February 2023 by two Middlesex faculty, Linda Dart-Kathios and Aliza Miller.

The article Discourse in the Mathematics Classroom: Small Steps to Addressing Equity was published by MathAMATYC Educator, the publication of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges. The paper discussed Dart-Kathios and Miller’s findings about incorporating more diverse perspectives in the classroom.

“We know in our field, the majority of our textbooks were and are written by white men, so we want to make sure that other populations are seen and hopefully students can relate in that way,” Miller said. “Our students can see themselves in these stories of others struggling and overcoming those struggles.”

In their classes, Dart-Kathios and Miller provided resources by and about diverse mathematicians for students to read and then respond to on discussion boards or as extra credit on tests. During an otherwise isolated time, this built community within the classroom environment, while also helped Dart-Kathios and Miller “change what references we use.”

In February, the department celebrated Black History Month by reading about Black mathematicians. For International Women History Month in March, they focused on biographies of female mathematicians. Another faculty member Maria Arambel reached out to MCC alumni to share their stories about STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) with current students for the month of April.

Students responded to prompts, such as, ‘what is your story,’ ‘do you identify with this person,’ and ‘who influenced you in math or STEM?’ In reading back the responses, similar themes popped up about students excited to see different peoples’ success stories.

“The responses we got from students were very enlightening,” Dart-Kathios said. “Comments like, ‘it’s nice to see someone who struggled like me or looked like me in math and continued to go on.’ It was a nice way to integrate these topics into the curriculum so it actually made sense.”