Mathematics Education Collaborative

Dr. Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018. Her research broadly centers on exploring how coaches (e.g., instructional, content, state-level, etc.) can support in-service teachers to enact high-quality mathematics instruction for all students. Dr. Saclarides's overarching research agenda can be further divided into exploring the following four themes: 1) Relationships between coaching and teachers' opportunities to learn; 2) Relationships between coaching and student achievement; 3) The politics of coaching, including the influence of policies and expectations on coaches; and 4) Coaches' learning opportunities during professional development.

Susan Gregson is a Professor, Field Service in the Curriculum & Instruction and Middle Childhood Education programs at UC. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction with a focus on mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Her research and teaching focus on equitable classroom practice, developing political knowledge for teaching mathematics, and the preparation of mathematics teachers for effective instruction of marginalized students. She has coached teachers and taught secondary mathematics in rural and urban schools, both in the United States and abroad.

Casey Hord is a Professor in the Department of Special Education. His primary research interest is developing mathematics interventions for students with learning disabilities and students with mild intellectual disability. Other research interests include the role of visual representations and strategic questioning in mathematics teaching, the training of pre-service teachers to teach mathematics to students with mild disabilities, and the potential role of mathematics tutors for students with mild disabilities in urban, suburban, and rural settings.

For more information on UC student involvement in tutoring contexts in the community, please see this link: http://cech.uc.edu/headlines/2016/hughes-tutoring.html and, if you have an interest in volunteering as a tutor at a local school, please email Dr. Hord at casey.hord@uc.edu

For more information about Dr. Hord's National Science Foundation project (in collaboration with Anna DeJarnatte) and related research, please see the following links:
https://cadrek12.org/users/casey-hord
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1813903
https://sites.google.com/ucmail.uc.edu/trainingpreserviceteachers/home

If you are interested in getting a PhD in Educational Studies with a concentration in Special Education, please contact Dr. Hord at casey.hord@uc.edu.

Rhonda Douglas Brown, Ph.D. is currently a Professor of Early Childhood Education and Human Development and Cognitive Developmental Psychology.

Dr. Brown co-founded and serves as Co-Director of the Developmental & Learning Sciences Research Laboratory, which strives to generate research, educational experiences, and applications using an emergent, interdisciplinary approach from the fields of developmental psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and education.

Dr. Brown also serves as Co-Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Children, Youth and Environments. The Children, Youth and Environments network disseminates knowledge and stimulates discussion to support inclusive, sustainable, and healthy environments for children and youth everywhere. 

Dr. Brown conducts research examining neural correlates and cognitive mechanisms of mathematical and memory development using fMRI and behavioral measures with the aim of improving educational interventions for children with learning difficulties. Dr. Brown has also conducted research sponsored by the National Science Foundation (Co-PI, Award # 1516191) examining how intentionally designed PlayScapes serve as environments for promoting children's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning and executive function. 

Dr. Brown advises students in the Educational Studies Ph.D. program in the Developmental & Learning Sciences area of concentration. From 2020-2024, she will serve as a co-advisor to doctoral scholars participating in the National Early Childhood Intervention Doctoral Consortium (ECiDC), which is funded to prepare doctoral scholars across 10 universities in early childhood special education (birth-5) and related services (occupational therapy, social work and speech and language pathology) for positions as future faculty members who have expertise with infants and young children with high intensity needs and their families (U.S. OSEP, H325H190004, Project Director: Mary Beth Bruder).

Anna DeJarnette is an associate professor of math education.  She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She studies students' mathematics learning through problem solving, groupwork, and opportunities for mathematical discourse. More broadly, she is also interested in students' development of problem solving practices across STEM contexts including science and engineering.

As a public elementary teacher-turned-researcher, my scholarship centers on practical issues of students' access to instruction and support at the district and school level.  Due to the building nature of mathematics, I am particularly interested in students' access to high-quality mathematics instruction in the middle-to-upper elementary grades.  I define high-quality mathematics instruction as practices that bring together the multiple strands of mathematics proficiency alongside schools' designs to provide assistance to students who struggle. Relatedly, when students struggle in math - briefly or in a more ongoing basis, I investigate the processes used in schools to provide assistance.  I am interested in cross-contextual avenues to success in mathematics, particularly the ways that schools in different settings must negotiate best practices to improve mathematics learning outcomes for their students. 
Alongside my research related to equitable mathematics practices in schools, I am interested in the ways that researchers used methodological approaches to investigate their research questions.  I have investigated the ways that mixed methods approaches to research may be leveraged to benefit the scope and depth of a project.  I have used mixed methods case study in its comparative case form to investigate contextualized mathematics practices in my research.  As a result, I have also published several methodological articles and chapters related to the use of mixed methods case study.

Beth has been teaching for the Elementary Education Program (formerly Early Childhood Education) at UC since 2007.  She a graduate of The Ohio State University, with a Bachelors degree in the Science of Education, majoring in Elementary Education (grades 1-8), with an Area of Concentration in Mathematics and also an Area of Concentration in the Social Sciences, and a Masters degree in Educational Theory & Practice in Elementary Education (grades 1-8).  She has had experience at various levels of age groups, including preschool, and elementary grades K-8.  All of her undergraduate and graduate field work was centered around the primary grades, with her full school-year practicum/internship student teaching taking place in a second-grade classroom in Worthington, Ohio. She also taught math/pre-algebra for nine years in the Forest Hills School District, with two of those years as a math intervention specialist.  She is currently an Associate Professor- Educator in the Elementary Education (ELEM) Program at UC, the ELEM Senior Field Coordinator, and the ELEM Program Co-Coordinator.  She teaches courses as well as supervises our ELEM seniors in the field.