Penn State hosted its tenth-annual TEDxPSU Conference recently with 11 speakers, including Nate Brown, professor of mathematics and principal investigator of the STEM Diversity Lab.
This year’s TEDxPSU focused on continuum — a sequence of events that don’t appear to be different from one another but have distinctly different extremes.
In his talk, Brown explores how the myths and stereotypes surrounding the “math people myth” came to be, and how it impacts students and professionals throughout their lifetime.
Brown recalled an instance at an airport in which he was asked by a stranger sitting next to him what he did for a living.
Upon stating he was a mathematician, the person whom he was speaking to visibly recoiled, claiming that they were not a “math person.”
“Let’s be crystal clear: math is a skill — it’s not a trait,” Brown said. “Practice and persistence are the keys to proficiency; small incremental improvements accumulate over time.”
However, Brown claims that persistence is especially difficult given the fact that most math environments are known for being low empathy.
Brown discussed what he calls the “ugly stereotypes” about the people that most members of society expect to be good at math. As he points out, these stereotypes tend to favor white and Asian men and tend to put down women and people of color.
“Math is a skill to be learned not a trait you are born with or without,” Brown said.
Brown’s research focuses on inclusive teacher behaviors in first year calculus classes, examining the role of instructor behaviors in STEM courses and their impact on marginalized (by race and gender) students.
Penn State’s Survey Research Center (SRC), part of the Social Science Research Institute, assisted Brown in conducting focus groups that served as pilot data for his current NSF-funded research. The SRC continues to provide support to the project by conducting additional focus groups and cognitive based interviews.
Over the past ten years, the TEDx conference has provided students, faculty, staff and community members with an interactive day of enlightening talks on a wide breadth of topics. The mission of the event is to bring together innovative and thought-provoking individuals from the Penn State community and the world to share ideas worth spreading.