Broadly, I am interested in how children and adults think, learn, and solve problems. More specifically, my research examines how children develop mathematical understanding, and the features of instruction that might contribute to the depth of children's conceptual knowledge. I am particularly interested in ways of leveraging learners' prior knowledge (what they already know) to help them learn difficult new concepts. For example, my research shows that children can learn from analogies between familiar and new concepts, and even practicing with familliar concepts immediately before solving similar, more difficult problems can be helpful. I also study how children and adults learn from examples, including the roles of self-explanation, diagrams and pictures, and comparison in math concept learning. In a related line of research, I am examining how (and when) learners' attitudes and anxiety about math affect how they solve problems or learn from instruction.
