Contact:
[email] dearnest <at> berkeley <dot> edu
About Me: I am a third year graduate student in the DMS (Development of Mathematics and Science) program at the GSE. Born and raised in Boston, I spent six years as a research and development specialist at TERC in Cambridge, MA. While there, key projects included Early Algebra, Early Arithmetic and the revisions of Investigations in Number, Data, and Space. As a researcher on the Early Algebra project, I worked with a team of researchers to design and implement algebra activities as a part of a longitudinal study of students from Grades 3 to 5. I taught the activities in third and fourth grade classrooms, and have presented and co-written articles with other team members. As a collaborating author on the revisions of Investigations, I worked with the Algebra Team to design an algebra unit for each grade from Kindergarten to 5. I additionally contributed to units on fractions, operations, measurement and time. I left TERC in 2005 to begin graduate study at the GSE. In my spare time, I like to run and be outdoors, read historical fiction, experiment with photography, make different kinds of soup, and play with his cat, Beetle.
Research Interests: I began my graduate studies to focus on the development of mathematical reasoning in elementary and middle school. Influenced by working in urban schools in Boston and Cambridge, my goal is to provide meaningful mathematics learning opportunities for all students. Accomplishing this effectively requires understanding how kids' mathematics reasoning evolves, and then how instructional settings can best facilitate the flow of mathematical ideas for both individuals and the classroom collective. My research has focused on the role of mathematical representations, and specifically non-routine treatments of conventional representations. My project The Algebraic Nature of Number Lines explored these non-routine treatments of representations from both teaching and learning perspectives: (a) as opportunities for teacher assessment of student understanding, and (b) as opportunities for students to confront anew mathematical regularities communicated through representations. In addition to EDRL, I'm also a researcher on the Learning Mathematics through Representations project.