Areas of Interest

• Connections between mathematical and verbal reasoning, and learning.
• Designing practicable education interventions that can be effectively used by the average classroom teacher.
• The use of teacher questioning (formative assessment) techniques to promote student engagement with educational stimuli (intention/attention, hierarchically guided).
• Delimiting the relationship between the constructs ‘conceptual understanding’ and ‘procedural understanding.’
• The concept and practice of scaffolding as it relates to
  • analogies as a key avenue for scaffolding
  • primary cognitive representations and the ways that symbols access them.

Keyword Interest

• Mathematical and Verbal Reasoning
• Classroom Interventions
• Formative Assessment
• Conceptual/Procedural Understanding
• Bases for Scaffolding
• Symbolic Competence

Current Research Topic/Field-Based Project

Project:
a) Conducting a 2x2 experiment examining the effects instruction type (conceptual vs. procedural), and self-explanation (prompt vs. no prompt) on 4th and 5th grade students’ performance on simple arithmetic equivalence problems.
b) Planning a series of experiments investigating similar phenomena in adults

Former Experience

• Staff development professional for K-12 public school teachers.
• Test prep instruction for ACT, SAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT tests.

Education

• M.A. (2001): Political Science, University of Chicago
• B.A. (1997): Physics, Harvard University