Cultural competence is the foundation of transformative mathematics leadership and a critical element of cultivating systems that uplift students and teachers. In this interactive session, participants will explore Leadership Action 2 from the NCSM Framework for Culturally Relevant Leadership: building cultural competence and creating a culture of continuous reflection and improvement. Participants will reflect on their own cultural perspectives, discuss strategies to foster cultural awareness, and identify steps to transform their systems together. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to promote cultural competence, activate teacher agency, and build systems that center belonging and humanity in mathematics education.
Director of Systemic Transformation, Dana Center, President, NCSM
Dr. Katey Arrington is the President of NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education and the Director of Systemic Transformation at the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She leads national, state, and district level initiatives to improve STEM education for... Read More →
Friday June 26, 2026 9:30am - 10:30am PDT Terrace CD
This session engages participants in Trans Math Languaging (TML) –a framework integrating translanguaging, hybridity, co-knowledge creation, and emotional reflexivity to rehumanize mathematics. Through the interactive lesson Building Thinking Circles: Falling forever and Infinite Mathematical Possibilities, participants experience how multilingual and identity-affirming pedagogy cultivates belonging and creativity. Grounded in the Todos/NCSM (2016) Social Justice Position Statement, research on whiteness emotionality (Matias, 2016), and rehumanizing mathematics (Gutiérrez, 2018), this session bridges theory and practice to demonstrate how emotional, linguistic, and cultural repertoires can transform mathematics into a space of humanity and collective agency.
Do you want to practice creating or adapting social justice oriented math tasks and curriculum? Do you want students to see how math can be connected to topics outside their textbooks? In this session, we will be discussing how to adapt or enhance a provided curriculum and adjust or add onto provided problems withing a curriculum through a lens of meaningfulness and social justice. Whether you’re beginning your journey or have experience and are looking for new perspectives, you’ll leave with implementable strategies and steps for the upcoming school year.
