Mariana Levin Research Interests: My research investigates the nature and form of students' informal and intuitive mathematical ideas and how these ideas can be articulated, built upon, and refined in instruction. The program of research I am developing is fundamentally informed by the knowledge in pieces (KiP) epistemological perspective (diSessa, 1993). In my current work, I am especially interested in students' intuitive ideas about algebra and the development of algebraic reasoning. My RCME home-base research group is ATS (Algebra Teaching Study) led by Alan Schoenfeld of Berkeley and Bob Floden of Michigan State University. One of the main foci of ATS is to develop measures and ways of characterizing excellent algebra teaching. The ATS Research group also is involved in related projects with the Gates Foundation and the Shell Centre in Nottingham, UK. Another RCME project I am currently working on with Na'ilah Nasir and Jack Dieckmann (of Stanford) is the development of the introductory "RCME Survey of Current Issues and Research in Mathematics Education." I am looking forward to co-teaching the inaugural edition of this course together with Jack this spring. Together with Orit Parnafes of Tel-Aviv University, I am the co-chair of the workshop steering committee for what we hope will become annual "KiPshops" - opportunities for researchers representing multiple disciplines and domains, but broadly informed by KiP, to come together to share recent work and ideas related to the general KiP program. We had our first KiPshop last spring before AERA in San Diego, attended by an international group of about thirty researchers at multiple career stages. We plan to hold a similar event immediately before ICLS in Chicago this summer. To facilitate the continuation and elaboration of the ideas from KiPshops, I am also involved in coordinating a local, weekly UCB Knowledge Analysis Seminar with Andy diSessa. If you're interested in KiP or knowledge analysis, please let us know! Publications:
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