mathematics

Nicole M. Joseph

Nicole M. Joseph is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nicole M. Joseph rather than just read about it. In short: Nicole Michelle Joseph is an American mathematician and scholar of mathematics education whose research particularly focuses on the experiences of African-American girls and women in mathematics, on the effects of white supremacist reactions to their work in mathematics, and on the "intersectional nature of educational inequity". She is an associate professor of mathematics education, in the Department of Teaching a…

Key takeaways

Nicole M. Joseph belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nicole M. Joseph to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nicole M. Joseph from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nicole Michelle Joseph is an American mathematician and scholar of mathematics education whose research particularly focuses on the experiences of African-American girls and women in mathematics, on the effects of white supremacist reactions to their work in mathematics, and on the "intersectional nature of educational inequity". She is an associate professor of mathematics education, in the Department of Teaching and Learning of the Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development.

Education and career Joseph is African American, and is originally from Seattle. After a fall-out with a racist teacher in her elementary school, she was moved to the only open class, an advanced and self-paced classroom in which she first developed a love for mathematics. She majored in economics, with a minor in mathematics, at Seattle University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1993. After "a few years in the business world", she began working in the Seattle area as a middle school and elementary school mathematics teacher, and as a mathematics coach, from 1999 to 2011. During this period she also studied at Pacific Oaks College Northwest, a former Seattle satellite campus of Pacific Oaks College, a private Quaker college in California. Through Pacific Oaks, she earned a teaching certification for Washington in 2000, and a master's degree in human development in 2003. In 2011, Joseph completed a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Washington. Her dissertation, Black Students and Mathematics Achievement: A Mixed-Method Analysis of In-School and Out-of-School Factors Shaping Student Success, was supervised by James A. Banks. In the same year, she earned a national certification in adolescent mathematics teaching through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. After completing her doctorate, Joseph joined the University of Denver in 2011 as an assistant professor, focusing on educating future mathematics teachers. She moved to Vanderbilt University in 2016, and was tenured there as an associate professor in 2021. In 2023, while serving as an associate dean at Peabody College, Joseph and two colleagues faced backlash for their use of ChatGPT as they crafted an email to the entire Vanderbilt community. Their message came in the wake of a shooting at Michigan State University.

Books Joseph is the author or editor of books including:

Interrogating Whiteness and Relinquishing Power: White Faculty's Commitment to Racial Consciousness in STEM Classrooms (edited with C. M. Haynes and F. Cobb, Peter Lang Publishers, 2016) Understanding the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Gifted Education: An Anthology by and About Talented Black Girls and Women in STEM (edited, Information Age Publishing, 2020) Making Black Girls Count in Math: A Black Feminist Vision of Transformative Teaching (Harvard Education Press, 2022)

Recognition Joseph was the winner of the 2023 Louise Hay Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics, "recognized for her contributions to mathematics education that reflect the values of taking risks and nurturing students’ academic talent".

References

External links Home page Nicole M. Joseph publications indexed by Google Scholar

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nicole M. Joseph

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nicole M. Joseph claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nicole M. Joseph before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nicole M. Joseph ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nicole M. Joseph

In research: Nicole M. Joseph appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nicole M. Joseph in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nicole M. Joseph is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American women mathematicians, African-American women mathematicians, American mathematics educators, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nicole M. Joseph outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Nicole M. Joseph” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Nicole M. Joseph in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nicole M. Joseph means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nicole M. Joseph out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nicole M. Joseph in simple terms?

Why does Nicole M. Joseph matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nicole M. Joseph?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nicole M. Joseph.