Cognitive Science Program

My research explores how teachers develop mathematical proficiency for teaching from professional experiences (i.e., in preparation programs, with colleagues in schools, and in professional development). Following Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Findell (2001), I define mathematical proficiency for teaching to include both knowledge and dispositions (cognitive and non-cognitive skills) and hypothesize that these components interact and develop together. Teachers are increasingly seen as the key to improving educational quality, yet little is known about how they learn the knowledge they use in their work or about the role of teachers’ dispositions in learning or using this knowledge. My approach to the problem has been influenced by recent work identifying and measuring the mathematical knowledge that teachers use in practice, by theories of motivation that link knowledge use and acquisition to social contexts, and by the power of quantitative methods to describe educational phenomena at scale.

In one study (Jacobson & Izsák, 2013), I used interview techniques to study prospective teachers' conceptual change during a university methods course. In another, I used hierarchical linear models of survey data from the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics to describe the associations between future U.S. Grade K-6 teachers’ student teaching experiences and their knowledge and beliefs about mathematics, teaching, and learning at the end of their teacher education program (Jacobson, 2013). I am currently exploring the hypothesis that specific grade level experience is consequential for developing mathematical proficiency for teaching at particular grade levels by using a mixed-methods, longitudinal approach to compare Grade 6 and 7 teachers who teach multiplicative reasoning topics with Grade 8 teachers who do not.

Jacobson, E. (2014). Using covariation reasoning to support mathematical modeling. The Mathematics Teacher, 107(7), 515.

Bradshaw, L. P., Izsák, A., Jacobson, E. & Templin, J. (2013). Diagnosing teachers understandings of rational number: Building a multidimensional test within the diagnostic classification framework. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 33(1), 2-14.

Jacobson, E. (2013). The timing of teaching practice: Teacher knowledge and the case for children's mathematical thinking. In M. Martinez & A. Castro Superfine (Eds.) Proceedings of the 35th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. 621-628. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois.

de Araujo, Z., Jacobson, E., Singletary, L., Wilson, P., Lowe, L., Marshall, A. M. (2013). Teachers' conceptions of integrated mathematics curricula. School Science and Mathematics, 113(6), 285-296.

Izsák, A., Jacobson, E., de Araujo, Z. & Orrill, C. H. (2012). Measuring mathematical knowledge for teaching fractions with drawn quantities. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 43(4), 391-427.

Jacobson, E. (2012). Knowledge and personal efficacy for teaching and the sources of teaching efficacy for multiplicative reasoning. In L. Van Zoest, J. Lo & J. Kratky (Eds.) Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. 565. Western Michigan University: Kalamazoo, MI.

Jacobson, E. & Izsák, A. (2012). Using a knowledge-in-pieces approach to explore the illusion of proportionality in covariance situations. In L. Van Zoest, J. Lo & J. Kratky (Eds.) Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. 629-636. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University.

Jacobson, E., Singletary, L. & de Araujo, Z. (2011). Mathematical process and US secondary teachers' conceptions of integrated mathematics curricula. In B. Ubuz (Ed.) Proceedings of the 35th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. 65-72. Ankara, Turkey: PME.

Brunaud-Vega, V., Jacobson, E. & Kim, H. J. (2010). Assumptions and possibilities: A task from grade 8 mathematics. Reflections, 54(1), 18-20.

Brunaud-Vega, V., Jacobson, E. & Kim, H. J. (2010). Assumptions and possibilities (Part 2): Using 8th grade tasks in high school. Reflections, 54(3), 22-24.

Izsák, A., Jacobson, E., de Araujo, Z. & Orrill, C. H. (2010). Teachers' levels of units and fraction division. In P. Brosnan, D. Erchick & L. & Flevares (Eds.) Proceedings of the 32nd annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. 1087-1094. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.

Orrill, C. H., Izsák, A., Jacobson, E. & de Araujo, Z. (2010). Teachers' understanding of representations: The role of partitioning when modeling fraction arithmetic. In K. Gomez, L. Lyons & J. Radinsky (Eds.) Learning in the Disciplines: ICLS 2010 Conference Proceedings. 338-340. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois.