Sean P. Freeland, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Education at Carlow University. He began his teaching career at University High School in Morgantown, WV where he was a mathematics teacher and a basketball coach. Following his time there, he became the Curriculum Coordinator and District Assistant Director of the Health Sciences & Technology Academy (HSTA) at West Virginia University, an after-school program for minoritized students throughout the state.

During his doctoral studies, Sean was also a graduate assistant for the NSF-funded Mountaineer Master Mathematics Teachers (M3T) program working with mathematics teachers across West Virginia in improving their practice. Sean’s research interests include identity research, specifically mathematics identities, with pre-service teachers, practicing teachers, and K-12 students.

He also is focused on practice-based teaching strategies with pre-service teachers as well as challenging the status quo and promoting justice and equity in education. Sean lives in the Greenfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh with his wife and two sons. 

Education

• PhD – Educational Theory and Practice, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV (2022)
• MA – Secondary Education, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV (2011)
• BA – Mathematics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV (2011)

Professional Memberships

• Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE)
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
• Pennsylvania Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (PAMTE)

Research

Interests: Identity/Mathematics Identity; Practice-Based Teacher Education; Classroom Talk and Discussion; Equity and Justice

Publications

• Schmidt, A., Bitto, L. E., Smucker, K., Freeland, S., Budhathoki, D. (2025). STaR teaching interest group perspectives on the 5 practices. AMTE Connections.
• Bolyard, J., Campbell, M.P., Freeland, S., & Petrone, C.G. (2025). Cultivating space for teacher leadership: Two cases of negotiation and developing identities across systems. School Science and Mathematics, 1-13.
• Coltogirone, R. A., Kuhn, S. L., Freeland, S. P., Bergeron, S. A. (2023). Fish in a dish: Using zebrafish in authentic science research experiences for under-represented high school students from West Virginia. Zebrafish, 21(2), 80-91.
• Campbell, M., Bolyard, J., Freeland, S., & Glance, C. (2023). Cultivating teacher leadership by growing and supporting teacher agency and collaboration in networked improvement communities. Individual session at the 2023 Annual Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators Conference, New Orleans, LA.
• Freeland, S. P. & Campbell, M. P. (2022). Black students’ tensions when freedom dreaming about an ideal mathematics education in rural Appalachia. In Lischka, A. E., Dyer, E. B., Jones, R. S., Lovett, J. N., Strayer, J., & Drown, S. (Eds.). Proceedings of the forty-fourth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Nashville, TN.
• McKendall, S. B., McKendall, A., Kuhn, S., Morton, C., McMillion, M., & Freeland, S. (2021). The Health Sciences and Technology Academy: Re-imagining programmatic delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of STEM Outreach, 4(4), 1-15.
• McKendall, S. B., McKendall, A., Chester, A., Morton, C., Freeland, S., Kuhn, S., & McMillion, M. (2021). High school students’ learning during the COVID pandemic: Perspectives from Health Sciences and Technology Academy participants. Journal of STEM Outreach, 4(1), 1-13.
• Freeland, S. P. (2021). Black students’ mathematics identities in rural Appalachia. In Olanoff, D., Johnson, K., & Spitzer, S. M. (Eds.). Proceedings of the forty-third annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Philadelphia, PA.
• Campbell, M. P., Baldinger, E. E., Kar, J., Freeland, S. P. (2021). Teacher candidates’ construction of characters in scripts. In Olanoff, D., Johnson, K., & Spitzer, S. M. (Eds.). Proceedings of the forty-third annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Philadelphia, PA.
• Karr, J., Baldinger, E. E., Campbell, M. P., Freeland, S. P., Graif, F. (2021). Experiences and considerations for coached rehearsals in secondary mathematics methods courses. Individual session at the 2021 Annual Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators Conference.
• Baldinger, E. E.., Campbell, M. P. , Freeland, S.P., Karr, J. (2021). Scripting tasks as approximations of practice in secondary methods courses. Individual session at the 2021 Annual Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators Conference.
• Freeland, S. P. (2020). Blackness and whiteness in Appalachian mathematics classrooms. In Sacristán, A. I., Cortés-Zaval, J. C., & Ruiz-Arias, P. M. (Eds.). Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the Forty-second Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Mazatlán, Mexico.
• Karr, J., Baldinger, E. E., Campbell, M. P., Freeland, S. P. (2020). Documenting adaptive expertise through the evolving use of an enactment tool. In Sacristán, A. I., Cortés-Zaval, J. C., & Ruiz-Arias, P. M. (Eds.). Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the Forty-second Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Mazatlán, Mexico
• Bolyard, J., Valentine, K. D., Freeland, S. (2020). Supporting elementary pre-service teachers to critically examine equity in rural Appalachia. Paper at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
• Campbell, M. P., Baldinger, E. E., Freeland, S., Graif, F., & Karr, J. (2019). Learning to respond to errors: Evidence from scripting tasks. In S. Otten, A. G., Candela, Z. de Araujo, C. Haines, & C. Munter (Eds.). Proceedings of the forty-first annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1197-1202). St Louis, MO: University of Missouri.
• Valentine, K. D., Bolyard, J., & Freeland, S. (2019, April). Investigating a design framework to support preservice teachers’ perspectives regarding access, equity, and productive struggle. Paper at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, ON.

Awards & Recognition

• STaR (Service, Teaching, and Research) Fellow through the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE)