Angela McIver

Angela McIver is the founder and president of Math Foundations, LLC. For nearly fifteen years, she has worked with urban students as both a math teacher and program director to help them gain access to higher education. During her tenure as Director of the Math/Science Upward Bound Program at Temple University, her program was chosen by the Council of Opportunity in Education (COE) as a National Model Program (one of only four in the country). Yet, while she and her program were extremely successful in producing college graduates, it became increasingly evident that - due to their inadequate math preparation in school - students in her programs were not prepared to pursue math related majors in college. In response, Dr. McIver began to explore ways to support their mathematical development. She enrolled in several college math courses as a "participant observer" to better understand why her students were failing to pass. This experience prompted her to explore innovative curricula, assessments and professional development tools that would effectively address the math deficiencies of older students. The lack of useful assessments and curricula led her to a Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education where she received the Spencer Fellowship for her dissertation Number Sense: An exploration of urban middle school students' numerical reasoning. She uses research from her dissertation as well as her current work with schools and job training programs to help organizations better understand the students they are trying to reach.