- Year 2018
- NSF Award #1660776
- Registration Current Noyce Scholar
- First Name Sarah
- Last Name Zuniga
- Discipline Math
- Institution Florida International University
Abstract
A mathematics Noyce Scholar will share how the Noyce program helped her discover teaching mathematics as her passion while simultaneously moving her from choosing ignorance to becoming aware of various injustices affecting various communities-ultimately helping her see teaching as a vehicle to address social justice issues. As a math major, the scholar was undecided on her career; she never considered teaching a real option but through field experience opportunities she found teaching. The Noyce Scholar will then share the various Noyce Workshop topics/experiences and how she interpreted and internalized the dialog around these topics/experiences in the context of education. As a underrepresented student, this math Noyce Scholar connected with some experiences and gained perspective via the stories of other Noyce Scholars. Each Noyce workshop increased her awareness ultimately changing her mission from teaching math to utilizing math to advocate for social justice. Her goal is to foster awareness thereby empowering her students to take action and serve as leaders in their community. The Scholar views teaching as an opportunity to step outside of STEM fields and incorporate different social, economic and cultural issues into the classroom and the lesson. The Scholar will share her preliminary ideas of how to incorporate the social justice topics into math lesson plan. This education stance has been developed through experiences at Florida International University (FIU) and their Noyce Seminar. FIU is an urban, public research university in Miami that serves over 57,000 students, over 80% of which are from historically underrepresented groups.
