Alejandra Salinas
Clinical Associate Professor
Dr. Alejandra Salinas is a clinical associate professor of mathematics education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She teaches both mathematics content and methods courses, as well as acting as the field experience coordinator for the program. Her scholarship and teaching are aimed at training highly qualified math teachers to teach in high-need schools, focusing on culturally responsive math teaching and other antiracist practices.
As a Mexican immigrant with an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering, Dr. Salinas experienced firsthand how implicit biases have affected her opportunities to be successful in STEM. For that reason, she works toward supporting math teachers in developing all students’ mathematical identities and empowering students to advocate for themselves and their community through mathematics. Toward this end, she has co-written several research-driven curricula, ranging from working with PBS Kids to develop an early childhood STEM curriculum to NSF-funded math curriculum for prospective elementary math teachers; created courses that encourage education majors to question why and how math should be taught; and been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants designed to mentor early career teachers to be successful in high-need school districts.
Currently, Dr. Salinas is a co-PI for the Justice & Joy in Mathematics Teaching and Learning Project, an NSF-funded Noyce grant which fully funds MAT students who commit to teaching in a high-need school district for at least two years, mentors them for 3 years, and researches ways in which education programs can recruit and retain more Black and Brown students into the education field.
Pronouns: she/her/ella
Recent News
Education
PhD, Mathematics and Science Education, University of Miami
MA, Mathematics Education, University of Michigan
BSE, Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
Courses
CAS MA 107/WED ME 503 – Mathematical Reasoning in the Elementary Grades: Number Systems
CAS MA 108/WED ME 504 – Mathematical Reasoning in the Elementary Grades: Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics
WED ME 506, 507, 508, & 509 – Practicum and Half Practicum for Teaching Mathematics (Grades 5-8 and 8-12)
WED ME 525 – Assessment in Mathematics
WED ME 530 – Equitable Pedagogies in Mathematics Education
WED ME 546 – Methods of Teaching Mathematics: Middle School
Selected Publications
Salinas, A., & Ly, C. (2014). Mathematics Gaming in Early Childhood: Describing Teacher Moves. In D. Polly (Ed.) Cases on Technology Integration in Mathematics Education, 351- 364.
Salinas, A., O’Brien, L. , Frometa, A., & Paratore, J. Paint-A-Long. In Schrier, K. (Ed.). Learning, education & games vol. 3: 100 games to use in the classroom and beyond (pp. 301-304). Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press (Carnegie Mellon).
Chapin, S. H., Gibbons, L., Feldman, Z., Callis, L. K., & A. Salinas (2021). The Elementary Mathematics Project: Supporting Preservice Teachers’ Content Knowledge for Teaching. In Y. Li, Y., Howe, R., Lewis, W.J., & J. Madden (Eds.), Developing mathematical proficiency for elementary instruction, Advances in STEM education (pp. 89-114). New York City: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68956-8_4
O'Brien, L., Salinas, A., Reinhart, K., & Paratore, J. (2018). Preservice Teachers’ Use of Technology and Multimodal Text Sets in Teaching Reading: Lessons Learned from a Design-Based Study. In E. H. Cheek, & P. Semingston (Eds.), Best Practices in Teaching Digital Literacies. Emerald.
Selected Presentations
Chapin, S., Feldman, Z., Salinas, A., & Callis, L.K. (2016, April). Effectiveness of curriculum units for preservice elementary teachers. Research presented at the 2016 Research Presession of the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), San Francisco, CA.
Salinas, A., Feldman, Z., Callis, L.K., & Chapin, S. (2016, April) A mathematics curriculum that supports preservice teachers’ content knowledge for teaching mathematics. Paper presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA); Washington DC.
Feldman, Z., Chapin, S., Salinas, A., & Callis, L.K. (2016, January). Curriculum units for elementary mathematics content courses: Developing faculty expertise. Research presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE). Irvine, CA.