Rakhi
Gandhinagar --:-- CV

Education researcher · IIT Gandhinagar

I study what children feel when mathematics gets hard, and what helps them stay with it.

A researcher who trained as a teacher and writes for classrooms. PhD scholar in Education at IIT Gandhinagar, former Junior Project Fellow at NCERT, UGC Junior Research Fellow. I work on emotions, resilience and the early years of learning mathematics in Indian classrooms.

Each dot is a learner meeting a hard problem. Move your cursor through the field: near you, they recover.

Sessions for schoolsWriting and curriculumCollaborate, from anywhere
(01)About

I came to research through classrooms. My four-year B.El.Ed at the University of Delhi put me in municipal and government schools before I had finished the degree, and my master's turned that experience into a question: how do children cope when learning gets difficult, and what do their teachers understand by resilience?

At NCERT's Department of Elementary Education I worked on thematic numeracy material for the foundational stage. Now, at IIT Gandhinagar, I am studying the emotional side of learning mathematics in primary and middle school, in the classrooms where children first decide whether mathematics is for them.

Based in
Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
studied in Delhi · IST, UTC+5:30
Field
Elementary and mathematics education; socio-emotional learning
Study design
Classroom observation, interviews with children and teachers, thematic analysis, questionnaire scales
Languages
Hindi, English

This question became the doctorate.

A note for readers outside India

Classes 3 to 8 are roughly ages 8 to 14: the last years of primary school and the first of middle school. B.El.Ed is a four-year integrated teacher-education degree at the University of Delhi, with school placements from the first year. NCERT, the National Council of Educational Research and Training, writes India's national curriculum frameworks and textbooks. IIT Gandhinagar is a public research institute in Gujarat, western India. UGC-NET is the national eligibility test for university teaching; the JRF (Junior Research Fellowship) is the national doctoral fellowship awarded through it.

IIT GandhinagarNCERTUniversity of DelhiDr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi
(02)The stuck point

A problem begins.

A child in Class 3 meets a sum. The method she knows works for a while. Ordinary, unremarkable, most of a lesson looks like this.

The method stops working.

Then it does not. She does not know what to do next. This is the stuck point: confusion at an impasse. It is uncomfortable, and it is also where learning is decided.

What the room does next.

A teacher's glance, a classmate's hint, a moment allowed to sit with the difficulty. Or nothing. What the classroom does with that moment is what my doctoral work is about.

Two endings.

Met with the right response, confusion can turn into curiosity and pride, and the child stays with mathematics. Left alone, it slides into frustration, boredom, and a quiet decision that mathematics is not for her. An illustration, not a finding.

(03)Research

The doctoral study

Mathematics anxiety is common, and it starts early. NCERT's position paper on the teaching of mathematics named ‘a sense of fear and failure’ among most children as the first problem of school mathematics two decades ago, and Indian policy has repeated the diagnosis since. Very little published Indian work applies the mathematical resilience framework in classrooms. My study looks at the moments of difficulty in ordinary lessons in Classes 3 to 8: what children feel, how teachers respond, and whether emotions such as curiosity, hope and pride can help a child stay with a hard problem rather than give up.

Working titleIIT Gandhinagar · since 2023

Exploring the role of positive emotions in fostering mathematical resilience: insights from Indian primary and middle-school classrooms

Three lenses, one question · select one

Emotions in learning come from two judgements a child makes almost without noticing: can I do this, and does it matter. Anxiety is what high stakes and low control feel like together. Mathematics in India is high stakes from the start.

The bridge. Confusion at the stuck point is where resilience is either built or lost. That is the moment I observe.

Who takes part

Observation in ordinary mathematics lessons, short interviews, storytelling and drawing, and brief questionnaires on resilience and anxiety, to catch emotions as they happen in the room.

Doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar.

Earlier work

  • MA dissertationDr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi · 2023

    An exploratory study of teachers' views and understanding of resilience, and the significance of socio-emotional learning for young learners

    Where the questions behind the doctorate first took shape.

  • Junior Project FellowNCERT, Department of Elementary Education

    Development of thematic material on numeracy at the foundational stage

    Material for the youngest learners, where number sense begins.

  • FellowshipThe Red Door

    Resilience and Compassion

    With a mental-health organisation, also the site of a non-school field attachment during the B.El.Ed.

(04)Work with me

Stories, activities, and material to teach with

I am a researcher who trained as a teacher and wants to keep working with children and teachers directly. I teach mathematics the way children meet it best: through a story they can follow and an activity they can do with their hands. Beside the doctorate I take on a little independent work of my own: a session in a school, a piece of writing for children, a set of material for the people who make learning happen.

i

Sessions for schools: The Stuck Point

I can bring a session to children in Classes 3 to 8 on what happens when mathematics gets hard, and what to do at the stuck point. It runs as a story the children follow and an activity they do with their hands, not a lecture. For teachers, a workshop on reading emotions in the mathematics lesson and responding at that moment; for parents, a talk on the same ground.

For
Children in Classes 3 to 8, their teachers, their parents
How it runs
A story, then something to make, sort, fold or play; the mathematics comes out of the doing
Format
Online anywhere, and in person in Gujarat; in English or Hindi; length and group size to suit your timetable
You get
A session shaped to your classes, and a one-page card for each child to keep
Cost
Free. What I ask for is honest feedback from the teachers afterwards
Write to ask about a session
ii

Storytelling and writing for children

I can write thematic and concept books that explain one mathematical idea in a fresh way, storybooks that carry the mathematics inside the plot rather than in a box at the end, and scripts for explainer channels. The roots are in my NCERT work on foundational numeracy, where an idea has to be right for the youngest learners before it goes on a page.

For
Publishers, explainer channels, anyone making material for children
Format
A manuscript, a script, or a series outline, in English or Hindi
You get
A draft that is mathematically sound, right for the age, and ready for your editor and illustrator
Start with a brief
iii

Activity-based curriculum and worksheets

I can build lesson sequences, activity and worksheet sets, assessment items and teacher-facing guides, in English and Hindi, designed so a child arrives at the idea by doing something rather than by being told it. I trained as a teacher before I became a researcher, so the material is built for the teacher who will use it on a Tuesday afternoon.

For
Publishers, edtech teams, NGOs and schools
Format
A defined piece, agreed together at the start
You get
Material that is mathematically correct, matched to the class and the language, and ready to print or upload
Write with a brief

How I would like to work: a call first, then a small first piece so we both know what working together is like. Scope and dates are agreed before I start. Everything with children goes through consent, and where research is involved, ethics review. I read everything that comes in; a reply may take a week.

Free to print and share

The Stuck Point card

Five things a child can try when maths gets hard, on one page, in words a nine-year-old can read. Keep it on the desk and point to one. Classroom practice, not a research finding.

Download the card (PDF) Hindi version coming

Print it. Stick it on the desk.

(05)Journey

Keep scrolling to travel

From Delhi's classrooms to a doctorate in Gujarat

Three institutions, two cities, and a lot of time on the floor of primary classrooms.

2016 to 2020

Bachelor of Elementary Education, University of Delhi

Four years, with mathematics as the optional subject. Second position in every year of the programme; first in Child Development and in the craft practicum in the first year; Best Intern in the fourth.

  • Teaching internships in MCD and SKV schools, Delhi
  • A week with Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur
  • Non-school field attachment with The Red Door
2023

MA Education, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi

Dissertation on teachers' understanding of resilience and socio-emotional learning for young learners. Scholarship for academic performance in the second semester. Hybrid course on Global Teacher Education Policy and Practice. Internship at Mahavir Senior Model School.

2023

UGC-NET, Education

The national eligibility test for Assistant Professor, in Education.

2023 to now

PhD in Education, IIT Gandhinagar

Positive emotions and mathematical resilience in primary and middle-school classrooms.

2025 to now

PhD Senator, Student Senate

Elected to the IIT Gandhinagar Student Senate for two terms, 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027.

Every chapter so far has run through a classroom.

Continue
(06)Background

Where I have worked with children and teachers

I came to research by way of teaching, and the classroom is still where the questions come from.

  • MCD and SKV schools, DelhiTeaching internships, B.El.Ed
  • Vidya Bhawan Society, UdaipurField internship
  • The Red DoorField attachment and fellowship
  • Mahavir Senior Model SchoolInternship, MA Education
  • NCERT, Department of Elementary EducationJunior Project Fellow

Teaching eligibility

  • CTET, Paper I
  • CTET, Paper II
  • HTET, Primary
  • REET, Level I
  • REET, Level II
  • AWES
  • UGC-NET, Education

Fellowship

UGC Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), Education, which funds the doctorate.

In the senate

PhD Senator, Student Senate, IIT Gandhinagar, for two terms: 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027.

Recognition

  • Best Intern, fourth year, B.El.Ed
  • Second position in each of the four years of the B.El.Ed
  • First position, Child Development and craft practicum, first year
  • Scholarship for academic performance, MA Education, second semester

Languages

I teach, interview and write in Hindi and English, and adapt material between them.

Away from the desk I draw and paint, make things out of what other people throw away, write poems, and go looking for trees.

(07)Collaborate

Working together, wherever you are

I am looking for people who study emotions, resilience and early mathematics learning in other school systems. If a child's stuck point looks familiar from your classrooms, I would like to compare notes and, where it makes sense, build something together.

What I bring

  • A doctoral study of primary and middle-school mathematics classrooms in Gujarat, and classroom placements in Delhi's government schools before that
  • Hindi and English, for instruments, interviews and classroom work in both
  • A teacher's training and a curriculum writer's hand: B.El.Ed, then numeracy material at NCERT
  • Storytelling and activity-based teaching of mathematics, which is how I work with children and how I design material
  • A frame that travels: control-value theory, mathematical resilience and affective dynamics, read together at the moment of confusion

What I am looking for

  • Parallel or comparative studies of mathematics anxiety and resilience in the early years
  • Co-authoring on academic emotions in mathematics classrooms
  • Adapting and validating resilience and anxiety scales for new languages and age groups
  • Teacher-education and curriculum projects with an international partner
  • Reading groups, conference panels, a visiting stint
  • If you are part of the Mathematical Resilience Network or work with the Johnston-Wilder and Lee framework anywhere in the world, I would especially like to hear from you

Practicalities

  • Time zone: IST, UTC+5:30. Late morning here is early morning in Europe and afternoon in Australia; for the Americas, early morning or late evening calls work
  • Video calls in English or Hindi; written work in either
  • Happy to start small: a call, or one shared reading
  • Everything with children goes through my institute's ethics committee and the school's consent, and I will say so early
  • Co-authoring
  • Comparative studies
  • Instrument adaptation
  • Curriculum and teacher education
  • Early numeracy
  • Mathematics anxiety
  • Mathematical resilience
  • Academic emotions

Start a conversation

Tell me where you are, what you study, and what you would like to try together. Two paragraphs are plenty. A reply may take a week.

Even one line is enough to start.

Write to Rakhi
(08)Contact

For research conversations, collaboration, teaching and curriculum work, or anything about learning mathematics in the early years. From anywhere.

rakhikhobba555@gmail.com
Download CV rakhi.23310082@iitgn.ac.in institute
Where
IIT Gandhinagar, Palaj, Gujarat, India
Local time
--:-- IST (UTC+5:30)
Updated
September 2026