This research project explores different ways to address student learning and progress through developmental algebra. Approaches to this research area include developing game-based and collaborative learning curricula for intermediate algebra, developing instruments to measure conceptual understanding in algebra, developing theories about how students learn and progress through fundamental algebra concepts as they learn algebra in developmental classes in college, and developing a concepts-based developmental algebra curriculum which accelerates students through elementary algebra, intermediate algebra, and precalculus by consolidating common concepts across contexts.
This research project focuses on which factors impact course and college outcomes for students who have been traditionally underrepresented and underserved in higher education, with a particular focus on external "life factors" (e.g. work and family commitments) and affective factors (e.g. self-efficacy) that may be particularly relevant for "non-traditional" students.
This project focuses on identifying which students are at highest risk of dropping out or failing a course when they take it online instead of face-to-face, while controlling for the complex characteristics that tend to influence both student self-selection into online courses and student decisions to persist or drop out of courses and college. The aim of this research is to help colleges make evidence-based decisions about when and which courses to offer online, and about which students to target for additional supports in the online environment.
This project focuses on more complex "life" factors that may be particularly relevant to the course and college outcomes of "non-traditional" students, and which are typically not tracked in standard institutional datasets. One example of this is time poverty, or the amount of time that students have to dedicate to their studies after the hours that they spend on paid and unpaid work, including childcare, have been accounted for. Time poverty is significantly higher among online students, student parents, and students who work to pay for college, and is also strongly correlated with college outcomes. This project seeks to uncover these complex relationships so that supports, such as financial aid, can be improved to better support the college progress of "non-traditional" students.
This project developed instructional materials, trained other instructors and implemented it in dozens of classrooms, researches the instruction and learning taking place in single and multi-variable calculus.The curriculum for single variable calculus is centered around local linearity, and the curriculum for multi-variable calculus is centered around the use of innovative clear 3D dray-erase surfaces and discovery-based activities in a hands-on collaborative setting. The research includes investigations of how students adopt physical tools for learning; how instructors change their instruction in novel hands-on settings, and what conceptions students form of key ideas.