Educator Mallika Scott studies the challenges of beginning teachers in teaching math and ways to support them — while boosting the confidence of young students to do the math.
“Often, beginning teachers don’t receive enough ongoing support to provide effective instruction,” said Scott, Cal State Fullerton assistant professor of elementary and bilingual education. “Teachers need more spaces to deepen their math understanding and draw from their own experiences.”
Scott, a former public school teacher and K-8 mathematics instructional coach, emphasizes the importance of providing ongoing math support for beginning teachers beyond their credential programs. She also draws attention to the connection between teachers’ personal experiences with math and the choices they make as teachers.
While headlines tend to paint a negative view of mathematics education in the U.S., Scott’s research fosters a more positive view of young learners’ mathematical potential to improve early math skills.
“One aspect of the difficulties children face with math in school is that we tend to treat math as an innate gift rather than a discipline everyone can learn,” said Scott, who wants to help new teachers feel more connected and inspired in their math practice.
In Scott’s research article, “We Ask So Much of These Tiny Humans: Supporting Beginning Teachers to Honor the Dignity of Young People as Mathematical Learners,” she addresses how new teachers can champion each other — and their elementary-age students as mathematical learners.
For her impactful article, published in 2022 in the journal Cognition and Instruction, Scott has received the American Educational Research Association’s 2025 Early Career Publication Award of the Special Interest Group for Research in Mathematics Education. The national award recognizes outstanding research published by early-career researchers in mathematics education.
“This article provides an example of how beginning teachers can combat harmful ideas about math and create caring and rigorous math communities that honor children’s dignity as learners,” said Scott, who joined the College of Education faculty in 2019.
Scott’s article focuses on honoring the dignity of young students in learning mathematics by acknowledging their unique perspectives and capabilities, rather than viewing them as lacking in mathematical understanding.
The article also highlights how ongoing support and collective effort are needed to counter deficit thinking about students as mathematical learners.
Scott added that teachers’ experiences with mathematics serve as a powerful resource to help them better understand and connect with their students.
“Children work hard to make sense of the world around them and preserve their own dignity in front of their peers,” she said. “Behaviors that may initially seem off-task or disruptive are often sensible responses to a learning environment that can feel inaccessible and exclusionary.”
In her courses, such as Mathematics Curriculum and Instruction in Elementary School Teaching, Scott challenges credential students to reflect on their own experiences and the kind of math teachers they want to be.
“Don’t think that you can’t be a good math teacher just because you didn’t enjoy math as a child,” she said. “Some of the best math teachers I know had difficult experiences in their schooling. But now, they get to be the math teacher they needed as a child.”