Team Members

Jingjing Sun is the Director of the Collaboration & Reasoning Lab and Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Teaching & Learning. Her research centers on children’s cognitive and social-emotional development, with an emphasis on designing strengths-based programs and community-engaged systems to promote the well-being of children and adults in their lives. She is proud to lead an interdisciplinary team of dedicated graduate and undergraduate students. When not in classrooms or gathering with community partners, you can find her reading, writing, skiing/snowboarding, and exploring the beautiful wildnerness of Montana with her family.  

Emma is pursuing a doctoral degree in Teaching and Learning. She has been a Graduate Teaching Assistant at UM since 2015,  while teaching Indonesian as a foreign language. Her academic/ research interest is related to the field of foreign language teaching, such as Content-Based Instruction and Collaborative Reasoning, in English as a Second Language context. Working at the CR Lab with Dr. Sun allows her to experience research first hand and to develop her own research interest. After graduation, she plans to continue teaching and be involved in research related to language learning. In her free time, she loves going on road trips, trying local cuisines, and photography.  

The work Izzie completes as a member of the lab team includes research observation notes, record-keeping, and learning from and applying the materials involved in the SELA project. She says her lab work is meaningful because of how it expands her understanding of how social-emotional and cultural learning can become successfully integrated into curriculum, instruction, and classroom environment.  

Nancy is currently working as the project coordinator for Project SELA (Social Emotional Learning in Arlee). She finds the process of connecting with community advisory board members to be the most meaningful part of the project. She feels honored to be able to collaborate with educators, school-based providers, and community members to ensure indigenous students are being supported through culturally responsive interventions. 

Macy's work involves assisting existing projects being operated by graduate students and Dr. Sun. One of the larger projects that she's assisting with is the Social Emotional Learning in Arlee (SELA) project. This research project is a collaboration between tribal members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Arlee School District, and University of Montana scholars to support Indigenous students’ social and emotional development. The program developed to support this initiative is called, The Pathways to Wellness Program, which integrates community values of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes into Indigenous students’ education as a culturally responsive method to promote well-being and support their social and emotional development. She says, "It’s meaningful to me because I am Indigenous myself, so participating in projects centered around supporting Indigenous communities is purposeful." She is also interested in pursuing graduate education that focuses on child development, so participating in the work this lab produces has significantly reinforced her passion because of how impactful the work is.  

Gabe is a junior undergraduate student majoring in Secondary History Education. His job in the lab as a Learning Assistant is to transcribe reflective journal entries from students taking EDU 222. He finds the work intriguing because he gets insight on what information stuck with students. He also finds the opportunity to work with his fellow classmates as a Learning Assistant to be quite a formative educational teaching experience.