For Universities
Professional development for university faculty and math instructors. Specialized student workshops designed to alleviate developmental math anxiety, increase STEM engagement, and decrease course attrition.
Give your students the foundational healing they need to pass their classes,
finish their degrees, and succeed in life.
Professional development your teachers will enjoy. Powerful workshops, speaking engagements, and personalized one-on-one consulting.
Helping students overcome math trauma and work through emotional blocks, while supporting teachers to create a positive environment for learning math.
Incorporating socio-emotional learning into math class (without sacrificing rigor!) because learning math is cognitive AND emotional.
Compassionate Math takes an intersectional approach to tackle math trauma.
Hover each component of the geometric figure to know more about how different things can affect math trauma.
Math requirements are among the biggest barriers to student retention and success, Compassionate Math focuses on transforming the mathematics classroom from both the instructor’s and the student’s perspectives so that students can reach their full potential in a rigorous yet welcoming mathematical space.
Human beings are mathematical beings. As we are human, understanding and using math to better are lives is a part of our natural selves. Just as humans have a driving need to create, we also want to understand and control our world. Mathematics helps us do this.
is a mathematics educator and former award winning Assistant Professor who received her PhD in Teaching and Teacher Education and a Master’s in Mathematics from the University of Arizona.
Her research focuses on the emotional side of learning mathematics and includes how computer-centered learning has affected students’ abilities to control their learning environment and how meditation may reduce mathematics anxiety.
Dr. Aly has been teaching at the university level for over ten years and, without sacrificing rigor, brings a personalized math learning experience to the classroom through active learning methods and by centering students’ emotional well-being. She is very familiar with the Common Core Standards and has experience teaching mathematics to Middle and High School students.
Underlying all of Dr. Aly’s teaching and research is a dedication to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice in mathematics education. She enjoys traveling, seeing live music, and is an avid chef. Geillan is also a wife and mother of a beautiful boy. They live near Hartford, CT.
“When students avoid math, they’re not just avoiding a subject — they’re being locked out of social mobility.”
Your audience has heard that math is important. They haven’t heard why their students are failing to engage with it — and what to actually do about it.
Dr. Geillan Aly brings the research on math trauma to conferences, institutions, and professional development events. She delivers engaging talks that shift how educators understand the problems we have in math class and leaves them with frameworks to foster real change.
Compassionate Math addresses math trauma from every angle. Led by Dr. Geillan Aly (who holds a Ph.D. in Teaching and Teacher Education, a Master’s in Mathematics, and has over a decade of classroom experience), programs combine deep mathematical content knowledge with proven pedagogical strategies to transform how math is taught and learned.
Professional development for university faculty and math instructors. Specialized student workshops designed to alleviate developmental math anxiety, increase STEM engagement, and decrease course attrition.
Job-embedded professional development, instructional coaching, and SEL-integrated math pedagogy for district administrators, teachers, and school communities. Designed to overcome math trauma and raise student achievement without sacrificing rigor in Title I and standards-based environments .
Targeted 1-on-1 coaching to heal personal math trauma, rebuild mathematical confidence, and equip parents to support their children's math learning journey at home.
I found that her study tips would be helpful for more than just math class.
AMAZING, very insightful on power struggles, values of intellectual contributions, norms, strengthening student contributions
Loved the cycle of benign neglect it's information that needs to be shine more light on that issue. i really left more inspired and will certainly share this with my mom, who struggles with anxiety in other areas and it's amazing how unstoppable someone can be by motivated intrinsically.
I feel 10x better about math walking out of this room than when I first walked in!
Geillan was very friendly and approachable. It was easy to open up about math struggles. Thank you!!
It was a very passionate talk with patience and real life scenarios where Dr. Aly's tips could be used.
I really enjoyed this session by Geillan Aly. It was very informative and engaging, and it gave me a fresh perspective on how I approach teaching. The session was eye-opening because it introduced me to new techniques and strategies that I can use to make my classes more interactive and student-centered. I left feeling inspired and motivated to try these ideas with my students to improve their learning experience and help them stay actively involved.
This session was great. We talked about kinda taboo topics within math straying away from content focuses. Instead bringing up the emotional influences that interact with learning mathematics. The anxiety, and societal pressures that students come into the classroom with. How the sciences are finally starting to move away from the content is all viewpoint. Instead putting student motivation and wants/needs first.
If I had to [describe] this session to a friend or colleague I would tell them that we are all capable of do good in math and even with all the barriers that we might encounter, we can always become successful.
I would say that if you are questioning your position in math than this session would benefit you tremendously by taking most of your anxiety away and taking the mental blocks out of your mind so you can confidently do math and achieve the things that you want to achieve.
Interactive, easy talk listen to, talk to, express, real life Classroom Interactions
Thank you for treating the audience as experienced adults who want to grow.
A mathematical explanation to solving life problems
You a doing a service to the inner children in us all who never knew they could be good enough so thank you
In teaching math, it's just as important to recognize the feelings and associations someone might have with a topic as the actual content that you'll be covering. Acknowledge and affirm the bad and harness the good.
A funny thing happened on the way to infinity…
I was with my kiddo who was bingeing “ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks” on Netflix when my ears perked up. Not because I was excited about another reboot created by AI (as a Gen-Xer I was completely rolling my eyes), but because the episode provides insight into math trauma and a journey to healing. Here I […]
Compassionate Math bloomed out of Dr. Geillan Aly’s own math trauma and her experiences helping students find their inner math person.
Students can tell immediately whether or not your math class is compassionate. Here’s what to say, what to skip, and why the opening words matter most.
Compassionate Math: Book One of the Compassionate Math Series, is half compassion (work through math trauma), and half math (conceptually understand arithmetic).
Written for the adult reader in a friendly, yet rigorous tone.
Compassionate Math is proud to have partnered with the following institutions:
