Contact:
- [office] Tolman 4515
- [email] mhowison <at> berkeley <dot> edu
About Me: I am a second year graduate student in the SESAME Ph.D. program (science and mathematics education) and the computer science department's M.S. program. Originally from Portland, Maine, I graduated in '06 from Brown University with a B.S. in mathematics and a minor in education.
Research Interests: Broadly, I am interested in mathematical cognition and computational literacy, especially how they are fostered through both informal learning encounters outside the classroom and carefully designed interventions within non-traditional classrooms. Currently, I am working with Carlo Sequin on designing a 3D modeling environment for exploring the symmetries of solid objects, for instance by constructing space-filling 3D Escher tilings.
Additionally, I am inspired by how complexity studies and, in particular, agent-based modeling can provide tools (e.g., NetLogo) for mathematical and scientific reasoning that are accessible to a wider range of learners than mathematical models that require extensive mathematics backgrounds. Yet at the same time, I am interested in the application of sophisticated mathematics to actual scientific modeling practices.
Teaching:
- GSI for Education 195C: Teaching Mathematics and Science: A Focus on Equity and Urban Schools, Spring 08
- GSI for Astronomy C10 (Fall 07)
- Geometry, Academic Talent Development Program, UC Berkeley, Summer 07
- GSI for Math 1A (Fall 06)
Presentations:
- Connecting Mathematics Through Investigating Scientific Phenomena: An Interactive Poster, AERA 2008.
Projects:
- My CS master's project: building a tool for ergonomically designing 3D space-filling "Escher" tilings.
- Building "nomograms" to provide learners with visuo-spatial representations of exponential phenomena. (PDF of my final paper from CS294-10 Visualization.)
- Designing an interactive, computer-based learning tool for Taylor series that bridges between graphical representations and symbolic inscriptions of Taylor polynomials. (PDF of my Spencer Research Training Fellowship proposal for this project.)
- Designing an agent-based modeling and computer sensor building activity for understanding heat flow along a wire by comparing models against real-world sensor data. (Accepted for presentation at AERA 08; PDF of a handout describing this project for GSE research day.)
- NetLogo 3D... in an immersive virtual-reality setting?