Our Keynote & Featured Speakers
Keynote speaker Deborah Peart is the founder and CEO of My Mathematical Mind. She speaks on a variety of topics related to math identity, elementary math content and instruction, and literacy connections to mathematics. Blending her training in yoga and mindfulness with mathematics instruction, Deborah advocates for a mindful approach to teaching mathematics in order to address math anxiety, build confidence, and support the development of positive math identities. She has dedicated her career to supporting educators with innovative teaching strategies that allow students to see themselves as assets to the learning community and curious problem-solvers. She is the Director of Elementary Learning at UnboundEd and the lead author for second grade for the Illustrative Mathematics K-5 curriculum. Deborah believes that all children deserve high quality instruction and the opportunity to become competent readers, writers, and mathers.
Featured speaker and workshop facilitator Jennifer Bay-Williams is a mathematics teacher educator at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, and focuses on helping teachers and students attain basic fact fluency while also developing strong mathematical identities. Jennifer is a national leader in mathematics education, having served as a member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Board of Directors, president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), lead writer for the Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics (AMTE, 2017), and member of TODOS: Mathematics for ALL. She has written various mathematics teaching books including Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally, the three-book series Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics, Math Fact Fluency, and Figuring Out Fluency.
Featured speaker Ji Yeong I currently works at the School of Education at Iowa State University. Ji Yeong does research on teaching for and learning of Emergent Bilinguals (a.k.a. ELs) in Mathematics Education. She is currently leading a research project called Implementing Mathematical Modeling for Emergent Bilinguals (IM2EB), which is funded by an NSF CAREER grant. This project involves working closely with algebra and pre-algebra teachers to support emergent bilingual students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. As an active leader of the mathematics education field, Ji Yeong has served as a board member of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA) and the Iowa Council of Mathematics Education (ICTM). She currently serves as a board director of TODOS: Mathematics for All, where she is dedicated to advancing equity and social justice in mathematics education.
