Victoria Hand

  • Associate Professor Emerita
  • STEM EDUCATION
  • CU TEACH

Victoria Hand is Associate Professor Emerita of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. She focuses on issues of culture, learning, identity and equity in the mathematics classroom. Her research examines the development of opportunities to learn in mathematics classrooms, and how these opportunities are negotiated differently by groups of students from various ethnic, racial, linguistic, and social backgrounds. She draws on situative and critical perspectives to analyze how the process of negotiation is influenced by the system of activity within a given classroom, and by broader sociopolitical processes and structures. Her teaching interests span a range of areas including equity in mathematics education, theories of mathematics teaching and learning, the design of classroom learning environments, and the analysis of classroom interaction.

Education

PhD Educational Psychology, Stanford University, 2003
MA Learning, Design & Technology, Stanford University, 1998
BA Quantitative Economics, University of California, San Diego, 1989

Community and Teacher Teams Investigate Equitable Noticing and Dispositions (CoATTEND), Elizabeth A van Es & Victoria Hand (co-PIs): ($1.4M, NSF; July, 2017 – July, 2026)

Agency, access and allies in mathematical systems (A3IMS), Beth Herbel-Eisenmann, Mary Foote, Victoria Hand & Anita Wager (co-PIs): ($2.5M, NSF; August, 2014 – September, 2019)

Equitable Noticing (Spencer Foundation),  Victoria Hand and Elizabeth A van Es (co-PIs): ( ($40,000, Spencer Foundation; August 2012-August, 2014)

van Es, E. A., Hand, V., Rubin, E. & Frierson, M. (in press). Noticing what matters. Harvard Education Press.

Mendoza, E., Valenzuela, C. A., Hand, V., & Abad, M. N. (2026). Engaging mind-body-spirit sensing in teacher noticing to embrace a spiritual turn. ZDM–Mathematics Education, 58(1), 57-69.

Osibodu, O., Byun, S., Hand, V., & LópezLeiva, C. (2023). A participatory turn in mathematics education research: Possibilities and tensions. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 54(3), 225-232.

van Es, E. A., Hand, V., Agarwal, P., & Sandoval, C. (2022). Multidimensional noticing for equity: Theorizing mathematics teachers’ systems of noticing to disrupt inequities. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 53(2), 114-132.

Hand, V., & Gresalfi, M. (2015). The joint accomplishment of identity. Educational Psychologist, 50(3), 190-203.

Hand, V. (2012). Seeing culture and power in mathematical learning: Toward a model of equitable instruction. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 80(1), 233-247.

Nasir, N. & Hand, V. (2006). Exploring sociocultural perspectives on race, culture, and learning. Review of Educational Research, 76(4), 449-475.