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I have developed strong rapport with K-12 teachers and students alike and sought out deep and intellectual partnerships with local teachers and administrators. I have published the results of that work alongside teachers and have presented with teachers at state and national conferences over the last decade. I look at this work, as well as other curriculum projects conducted alongside inservice teachers as important because it amplifies the voices of teachers and gives them a larger stake in the purpose and interpretation of educational research.
I have developed strong rapport with K-12 teachers and students alike and sought out deep and intellectual partnerships with local teachers and administrators. I have published the results of that work alongside teachers and have presented with teachers at state and national conferences over the last decade. I look at this work, as well as other curriculum projects conducted alongside inservice teachers as important because it amplifies the voices of teachers and gives them a larger stake in the purpose and interpretation of educational research.
Curriculum and Student Learning. My research interest in curriculum and student learning has been a constant throughout my career. I document the mathematics of others (Lo & Cox, 2018; Lopes & Cox, 2018; Cox, 2013; Cox & Lo, 2014; 2019) and write curriculum to expose student mathematical thinking for use in instruction (Lo & Cox, 2020; Cox, Meicenheimer & Hickey, 2017; Edwards, Harper, Quinlan et al., 2014; Edwards, Harper & Cox, 2012; Cox & Edwards, 2012; Edwards and Cox, 2011; Cox & Lo, 2012, 2009).
Teachers are a gateway to technology-rich opportunities to learn. I have also explored how secondary preservice teachers envision the role of technology in teaching mathematics and how that vision is influenced by a semester of concentrated experiences utilizing technology for mathematical problem solving (Cox & Harper, 2016; Zelkowski, Gleason, Cox et al., 2013; Harper & Cox, 2012). This work was important in documenting that beliefs related to teaching with technology can be influenced by opportunities to use technology to solve problems, but that preservice teachers need time to reflect on those experiences.
Narrative Inquiry and Empathetic Methodologies. This work with preservice teachers’ self-reflection (Simon & Cox, 2019; Cox, Harper & Keiser, under review) greatly influenced my thinking about the power of narrative and the methodology of narrative inquiry (Chapman, Kastberg, Suazo-Flores, Cox & Ward, In Press, 2018). My perspective was also influenced by work on a Mathematics and Science Partnership grant, Developing Ownership and Vision: Empowering Teachers as Instructional Leaders (DOVETAIL). It was as a result of this partnership with local teachers that caused me to seek empathetic methodologies (D’Ambrosio & Cox, 2015) that give voice to research participants and allowed me to document personal growth and learning (Cox & D’Ambrosio, under review; Cox, Naresh, D’Ambrosio, et al., 2014).
Problem Solving with Technology. I have worked to position students as teachers of problem solving. Methodologically, we advanced the field of research on mathematical problem solving by establishing screencasting as a viable way to make authentic, accurate, and articulated records of problem-solving activity (Cox, Harper & Edwards, 2018; Cox & Harper, 2017; Harper & Cox, 2017). As a goal of this study, Suzanne Harper, Todd Edwards and I apply the methods of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2004) and Thick Description (Geertz, 1973; Denzin, 1989; Ponterotto, 2006) to write narratives of how preservice secondary mathematics teachers engage with mathematics and with technology (Cox & Harper, 2017, 2018). This has helped us to document authentic, articulated instances of both problem solving and problem posing in a geometric context (Cox, Harper & Edwards, 2018). Here, narrative inquiry is used to capture more personal and human dimensions of experience.
Current Work. Empathy became thematic in my work as a researcher (Cox, 2019) and is supported by the use of narrative inquiry as a self-based methodology (Chapman et al.,2020). Narrative Inquiry is central to three of my ongoing areas of study:
Based on first-person narratives about a classroom activity centered on the act of defining mathematical terms, I am working with Jane Keiser and Suzanne Harper to uncover beliefs held by these preservice teachers about the fluidity of mathematical definitions and how collaborative writing as a medium might afford opportunities for mathematical empathy in the content classroom.
Based on focus group and survey data, I am working with Sarah Watt and Wayne Nirode to explore the union of Mathematics and Special Education in K-12 mathematics education. While the intersection of these fields is important to study, it is also important to look more globally at the union of these two fields, focusing not just on what we share, but what we retain as separate and those factors that make it difficult to come into a productive intersection. It is clear that we do not yet fully understand why collaborations succeed or fail, nor have we been strategic in teaching prospective or inservice teachers the art of professional collaboration. By better understanding those facets of our identity that pull the two areas apart, we can better facilitate coming together.
A more complete picture of my scholarship can be found in my Curriculum Vitae and Google Scholar and ResearchGate profiles.
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