Faculty Profile EMPHASIS AREA: MTH. Elementary Education; Gender and Equity Issues in Mathematics Education; In-Service and Preservice Teacher Learning; Mathematics Education

Rebecca Ambrose

Professor

Portrait of Rebecca Ambrose

After teaching middle school math for ten years, I decided to pursue a PhD to get a fresh perspective on the issues I observed every day in my classroom and thought that maybe I could help develop remedies that would help other teachers, as well.

Rebecca Ambrose researches how children solve mathematics problems and works with teachers to apply what she has learned about the informal strategies children employ to differentiate and improve instruction in math. She credits her approach to a method called Cognitively Guided Instruction, founded by Thomas Carpenter and Elizabeth Fenneman in the 1980s at the University of Wisconsin.

Scholarly Foci

Children’s Mathematical Thinking – Examining the mathematical conversations teachers have with their students. Exploring how young children’s mathematical thinking develops in geometry and algebra and how it is affected by language issues.

Equity Issues in Mathematics Education – Considering ways in which mathematics instruction empowers or disadvantages children by working with teachers in high-poverty schools with large numbers of English Language Learners. Documenting the mathematical power of economically disadvantaged students through video taped interviews.