Kristen Vroom
Michigan State University, MI·Education Research
How students experience college math, whether as rule-following or as something they can help create, shapes who goes on in STEM. Two collaborative projects study how undergraduate mathematics teaching can invite students into real mathematical reasoning.
- Fields
Education Research
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
mathematics education
calculus
sequences and series
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Sep 2029
What they work on
- Design, test and refine inquiry-oriented lessons on sequences and series for second-semester calculus, built with Universal Design for Learning, through three cycles of classroom design research.
- Examine how students can be guided to reinvent central ideas such as the tests for series convergence, using retrospective analysis of classroom video, and how they experience the instruction through surveys and interviews.
- Characterize mathematics instructors' norms and values around mathematical definitions, and the teaching moves that communicate them, using focus groups, classroom observations and interviews.
- Relate the values communicated in instruction to what students take away about mathematics, and develop a toolkit that helps instructors put their values into practice.
More about the research
One focuses on how instructors convey what mathematical definitions are for. The other designs calculus lessons in which all students can take part in building the ideas.
Why it matters
Calculus and proof-based courses are gateways to STEM careers, and many students leave believing they cannot do mathematics. Free, research-based calculus lessons and an instructor toolkit could help college mathematics instructors teach so that more students, including those who learn in different ways, take part in mathematical reasoning and see math as a creative field.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Collaborative Research: Designing for All - An Inquiry-Oriented Approach to Calculus Sequences and Series with Universal Design for Learning
NSF · Oct 2026 – Sep 2029
Collaborative Research: Supporting Mathematical Instruction around Definitions through Values-Centered Collaboration
NSF · Oct 2024 – Sep 2027
Closest labs
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University of Washington, WA·Education Research
Identify the learning objectives of second-year mathematical methods courses for physics majors and the math skills students bring into them, using interviews and samples of student work.
Maya Israel
University of Florida, FL·Education Research
Identify the needs, barriers and strategies that general and special education teachers face when teaching K-8 computer science to all students, through a research-practice partnership in Broward County, Chicago and a national teacher community.
Rebecca Hunter
College of New Jersey, NJ·Education Research
Apply the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform framework, which treats instructional beliefs, practices, personal and contextual factors as drivers of change, as a diagnostic tool to characterize each institution's barriers to adopting the networked chemistry CURE.
The school
Michigan State University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $932M a year on research, 555 research doctorates a year.
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