Amy Smith

Professor Smith’s teaching is grounded in inquiry, collaboration, reflection, and the belief that meaningful learning occurs when students have opportunities to reason, question, and construct understanding together. Drawing on her experiences as an elementary teacher, she intentionally creates learning environments that value intellectual risk-taking, dialogue, shared problem-solving, and students’ individual perspectives. Her courses encourage future educators to think critically about how curriculum, policy, and instructional practices shape students’ opportunities to learn while developing the disciplinary knowledge, confidence, and reflective habits needed to become thoughtful and responsive teachers. Smith’s scholarship centers on the belief that all children bring valuable mathematical understandings to the classroom and that teachers and teacher education should recognize, honor, and build upon students’ diverse ways of reasoning. Her current research examines children’s funds of temporal and durational knowledge, the use of multicultural mathematical picture books to support inclusive learning, and teachers’ development of models for understanding and responding to students’ mathematical reasoning. Her research has been supported through grants from the Spencer Foundation, the Hollis Institute, and other collaborative funding initiatives, and has resulted in publications and local, national, and international presentations focused on mathematics teaching, learning, and equity. Across her teaching and scholarship,mSmith is committed to advancing mathematics education that is both intellectually rigorous and humanizing, while preparing educators to recognize and build upon the strengths, identities, and lived experiences that students bring to the classroom. Amy Smith, PhD is a teacher-scholar whose work is grounded in more than a decade of experience as an elementary teacher and a deep commitment to equitable, inclusive teaching and learning. After 13 years as an elementary teacher, she earned her PhD in Education and Human Development from the University of Colorado Denver. Smith’s teaching is grounded in inquiry, collaboration, reflection, and the belief that meaningful learning occurs when students have opportunities to reason, question, and construct understanding together. Drawing on her experiences as an elementary teacher, she intentionally creates learning environments that value intellectual risk-taking, dialogue, shared problem-solving, and students’ individual perspectives. Her courses encourage future educators to think critically about how curriculum, policy, and instructional practices shape students’ opportunities to learn while developing the disciplinary knowledge, confidence, and reflective habits needed to become thoughtful and responsive teachers. Smith’s scholarship centers on the belief that all children bring valuable mathematical understandings to the classroom and that teachers and teacher education should recognize, honor, and build upon students’ diverse ways of reasoning. Her current research examines children’s funds of temporal and durational knowledge, the use of multicultural mathematical picture books to support inclusive learning, and teachers’ development of models for understanding and responding to students’ mathematical reasoning. Her research has been supported through grants from the Spencer Foundation, the Hollis Institute, and other collaborative funding initiatives, and has resulted in publications and local, national, and international presentations focused on mathematics teaching, learning, and equity. Across her teaching and scholarship, Smith is committed to advancing mathematics education that is both intellectually rigorous and humanizing, while preparing educators to recognize and build upon the strengths, identities, and lived experiences that students bring to the classroom.