I am pleased to announce that I will be presenting on behalf of MathAffect at the Spring Conference for the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in Maine, an affiliate of NCTM.  The conference is on March 25th at the University of Maine in Augusta.  For information about ATOMIM and details about the spring conference, check out their website here.  Here is a synopsis of what we will be presenting:

As math teachers, we are perennially aware of the problems that math anxiety causes in the classroom.  Recent research in affective neuroscience reveals the large role that emotion plays in learning, and as a result we better understand how math anxiety interferes with cognition.  Understanding the problem gives us strategies to combat it, and alleviating math anxiety is associated with an achievement gain of over twenty percentile points.  This presentation will cover the causes, ages of onset, and prevalence of math anxiety, a review of the research surrounding its effects on cognition, how to assess the level of math anxiety in your classroom, and alleviation strategies broken down by grade level.  Special attention will also be paid to the distinction between math anxiety and stereotype threat, which influences how girls (and other stereotyped groups) perform in math class.

The conference will (hopefully) coincide with the release of my new ebook on math anxiety, which serves as a handbook and resource guide for teachers interested in harnessing positive emotions in the math classroom.  Here’s to a 2011 full of laughing and learning!