You are here: American University School of Education Faculty Profile Page

Back to top

Photograph of Emily Yanisko

Emily Yanisko Senior Professorial Lecturer City Teaching Alliance Program

Degrees
PhD, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
M.Ed, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
BS, Computer Science, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY.
BA, Music, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

Bio
Dr. Emily Yanisko is the Regional Lead Clinical Faculty of Secondary Mathematics for the City Teaching Alliance sites in Baltimore, DC, and Philadelphia, and a Senior Professorial Lecturer at the American University School of Education. She began her career in mathematics education as a high school mathematics teacher at Parkdale High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland. While pursuing her doctorate at the University of Maryland, College Park, she served as an instructional coach for teachers in the Maryland Science and Mathematics Resident Teacher (MSMaRT) program, which placed novice middle school mathematics and science teachers in Prince George’s County Schools. After finishing her doctorate, she joined City Teaching Alliance (formerly Urban Teachers, formerly Urban Teacher Center) as a clinical faculty member and instructional coach in mathematics at all grade levels.

Dr. Yanisko’s clinical work focuses on developing teacher capacity to teach culturally relevant task-based mathematics instruction that focuses on mathematics modeling and problem solving in contexts that matter to young people. Through coursework, instructional coaching, and research, Dr. Yanisko works to make sure Black and Brown students in urban and urban-fringe school districts receive mathematics instruction that capitalizes on their cultural knowledge and supports their individual thriving.

Dr. Yanisko's research focuses on teacher education with a focus on instructional coaching to prepare teachers who teach mathematics using culturally relevant and cognitively demanding problems and facilitate mathematics discussions with student thinking at the center.

Dr. Yanisko is a co-Principal investigator of a National Science Foundation award to develop content and evaluate the results of the Baltimore Online Algebra for Students in Technology (BOAST) program, which engages Baltimore high school students in engineering-embedded algebra projects which aim to develop students’ algebra proficiency while growing and supporting their interest in the field of engineering. Over time, the BOAST project has grown into Project X: Algebra Engineering Lab, an elective course that will be taught in some Baltimore City Schools to 9 - 12th graders and will be taught by Johns Hopkins undergraduate students with instructional coaching by educators including Dr. Yanisko.
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Summer 2024

  • EDU-758 Numbers/Opers/Algebraic Reason

Fall 2024

  • EDU-761 Early Counting and Connections

  • EDU-767 Elem Mthd Transform STEM Tchg

Spring 2025

  • EDU-722 Fractions for Everyday Life

  • EDU-763 Shape, Space, and Culture