Research
I am interested in the intersection between adolescent development and mathematics learning. In particular, I wonder about the ways in which students' experiences of social dimensions of the mathematics classroom intersect with opportunities to learn mathematics and students' beliefs about themselves as learners of mathematics. One of my current research projects is an analysis of sixth grade students' perspectives on participating in small group work during mathematics class. I am conducting this study through a partnership with the University of Delaware's Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center. This current research project complements my prior research on seventh grade students' motivational beliefs about participating in whole-class discussions (Jansen, 2006) and an investigation of how these seventh grade students' beliefs about participating related to how they participated in whole-class discussions (Jansen, 2008). I have studied prospective teachers' motivations for participating in whole class discussions during mathematics content courses for elementary school teachers (Jansen, 2009) as well. In 2009, I received the Early Career Publication Award through the American Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group for Research in Mathematics Education for my article on relationships between seventh grade students' beliefs about participating and their involvement in mathematics classroom discussions.
For another look at adolescents' perspectives on their experiences in mathematics classrooms, as a researcher with the Mathematical Transitions Project (funded by the National Science Foundation), I have studied secondary students' epistemological conceptions in different curricular contexts (Star & Hoffmann, 2005), investigated what secondary and undergraduate students noticed as different between traditional and reform mathematics programs (Star, Smith, & Jansen, 2008), and analyzed students' experiences of the received curriculum as they moved from a middle school that used reform mathematics curriculum materials into a high school that used more traditional mathematics texts (Jansen, Herbel-Eisenmann, & Smith, under review).
Also, I am curious about how to support prospective and novice teachers in their development of reflective thinking skills so that they can learn more effectively from their own practice. One of my current projects is an investigation of novice middle school mathematics teachers teachers' (graduates of our teacher education program) reflective thinking skills (Jansen & Webel, in progress). This project was supported by a General University Research program grant through the University of Delaware. Previously, I have analyzed prospective teachers' reflective thinking skills, specifically how they described their students' thinking and analyzed their teaching when they taught a mathematics lesson in their field placement (Jansen & Spitzer, 2009). Additionally, in this line of research, I have contributed to two collaboratively written theoretical articles. One described a framework for teacher education programs that aims to help prospective teachers learn how to teach through studying teaching (Hiebert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007), and the other discussed the role of targeted and shared learning goals in developing a knowledge base for elementary mathematics teacher education (Jansen, Bartell, & Berk, 2009). My research in the area of mathematics teacher education has been supported by the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Additional publications are listed on my C.V.