Karen King

Professional Title
Program Director
About Me (Bio)
Karen D. King is transitioning to become Program Director at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings in the Education and Human Resources Directorate. She most recently served as Director of Research for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the largest professional association of mathematics teachers in the world, serving the US and Canada. King’s current research focuses on urban mathematics reform, the mathematics preparation of elementary and secondary teachers, and the policies of mathematics teacher professional development. She has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator of National Science Foundation funded grants totaling over $2,000,000 and recently co-edited book titled Disrupting Tradition: Research and Practice Pathways in Mathematics Education with William Tate, IV and Celia Rousseau Anderson. She also serves as part of the writing team for the revision of The Mathematical Education of Teachers, which describes the mathematics teachers need to know and be able to do to be successful in light of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics.

King has served as associate editor of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education and was a member of the RAND Mathematics Study Panel, which made recommendations to the U.S. Department of Education about future research funding in mathematics education. She received a Ph.D. in 1997 at the University of Maryland, where she conducted research on mathematics teacher thinking. She also serves on numerous committees focusing on research in mathematics education and teacher education with national organizations.
Keywords
Vanderbilt University
10/01/2016

The goal of this project is to improve the implementation of rigorous instructional materials in middle-grades mathematics at scale through a system of practical measures and routines for collecting and using data that both assesses and supports implementation.

University of California, Riverside
10/01/2016

The goal of this project is to improve the implementation of rigorous instructional materials in middle-grades mathematics at scale through a system of practical measures and routines for collecting and using data that both assesses and supports implementation.

American Institutes for Research (AIR)
08/01/2014

Students who fail algebra in the ninth grade are significantly less likely than their peers to graduate from high school on time. This project intends to test a common support strategy for at-risk students that provides an extra period of algebra, commonly known as a "double dose" condition. The Intensified Algebra (IA) is an intervention that addresses both the academic and non-academic needs of students.

Arizona State University (ASU)
07/01/2018

This project will study the design and development of PD that supports teacher development and student learning, and provide accumulation of evidence to inform teacher educators, administrators, teachers, and policymakers of factors associated with successful PD experiences and variation across teachers and types of PDs. The study will examine teachers' uptake of mathematics content, pedagogy and materials from different types of professional development in order to understand and unpack the factors that are associated with what teachers take up and use two-three years beyond their original PD experience.

University of Idaho (UI)
10/01/2013

This project tests and refines a hypothetical learning trajectory and corresponding assessments, based on the collective work of 50 years of research in mathematics education and psychology, for improving students' ability to reason, prove, and argue mathematically in the context of algebra. The study produces an evidence-based learning trajectory and appropriate instruments for assessing it.

University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP)
10/01/2012

Researchers, at the University of Houston, are designing, implementing and studying a curriculum that prepares preservice, elementary teachers for equitable teaching of mathematics. The program increases the mathematical knowledge of preservice teachers and helps them recognize and implement equitable instruction. The preservice teachers are learning to recognize equitable practices by using the Mathematical Quality and Equity Observation Protocol (MQE) to assess teaching as viewed in video cases.

Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC)
07/01/2017

The goal of this project will be to provide the field with a cost-effective model for intense content-based professional development in ways that have not been possible before, except through costly face-to-face models, by creating and testing design principles for blended online courses. Team members will design, implement, and research the effects of a professional development immersion experience in mathematics for practicing secondary teachers (grades 7-12).

SRI International
06/15/2014

The objective of this project is to develop a toolkit of resources and practices that will help inservice middle grades mathematics teachers support mathematical argumentation throughout the school year. A coherent, portable, two-year-long professional development program on mathematical argumentation has the potential to increase access to mathematical argumentation for students nationwide and, in particular, to address the needs of teachers and students in urban areas.

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth)
09/01/2016

This project focuses on the creation of the initial functionality for a dynamic microworld, Proportions Playground, designed to support teachers in developing a coherent understanding of proportional reasoning. The Proportions Playground project seeks to both develop a unique pilot software application for the iPad and explore how it supports teachers in developing a coherent, robust definition of proportions.

San Diego State University Research Foundation (SDSU Research Foundation)
09/01/2014

Despite the tremendous growth in the availability of mathematics videos online, little research has investigated student learning from them. The goal of this exploratory project is to create, investigate, and provide evidence of promise for a model of online videos that embodies a more expansive vision of both the nature of the content and the pedagogical approach than is currently represented in YouTube-style lessons.

Stanford University
07/01/2014

This study examines non-cognitive factors, mindsets, cognitive factors, and strategies for learning mathematics, in the context of a MOOC combined with classroom instruction for middle grades students in mathematics. No previous mindset study has researched the impact of mindset messages within mathematics, and the proposed study will add important knowledge to this field.

Harvard University
01/01/2010

This project is examining the relationship between specific technology-based motivational activities and grade 5 to 9 student interest in STEM careers through a variety of classroom-based experiences. The project will test a series of specific hypotheses relating motivation, self-efficacy, STEM career interest, and mathematics learning to activity assignment.

Vanderbilt University
09/15/2016

This project will explore the potential of video-based formative feedback to enhance professional development around ambitious instruction for secondary teachers in urban schools.

Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC)
10/01/2016

The project will research the implementation of Transition to Algebra, a year-long mathematics course for underprepared ninth grade students taken concurrently with Algebra 1 to provide additional support, and its impact on students' attitudes and achievement in mathematics in combination with teachers' instruction and the types of supports teachers need to successfully implement the intervention.

University of Rochester (U of R)
09/01/2016

This project will develop and implement an innovative online mathematics professional development model designed to provide growth opportunities for teachers in rural districts who normally lack access to such opportunities. The project will focus on developing teacher capacity to enact ambitious, responsive instruction aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), and thus will be sustained, interactive, and of sufficient duration to help teachers transform their practices.

University of Pennsylvania (Penn)
09/15/2016

This project builds on the study of the Ongoing Assessment Project's (OGAP) math assessment intervention on elementary teachers and students and combines the intervention with research-based understandings of systemic reform. This project will produce concrete tools, routines, and practices that can be applied to strengthen programs' implementation by ensuring the strategic support of school and district leaders.

New York University (NYU)
09/01/2007

This study explores the ways middle school mathematics teachers implement standards-based curriculum materials in urban schools. It takes the view that instructional materials are cultural tools and examines how teachers use these tools to plan and implement the curriculum in their classrooms. The study is using a mixed methods approach that combines surveys of teachers in 30 schools in the Newark Public Schools district and closer observations of teachers in selected case schools.

Measured Progress
08/01/2013

This project contributes to the small research base by exploring the validity of Technology-Enhanced Items (TEIs) in the context of elementary geometry. The project addresses three research questions: 1) To what extent are TEIs a valid measurement of geometry standards in the elementary grades?; 2) To what extent do TEIs provide an improved measurement compared to SR items?; and 3) What are the general characteristics of mathematics standards that might be better measured through TEIs?

Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute
07/01/2015

Given the changes in instructional practices needed to support high quality mathematics teaching and learning based on college and career readiness standards, school districts need to provide professional learning opportunities for teachers that support those changes. The project is based on the TRUmath framework and will build a coherent and scalable plan for providing these opportunities in high school mathematics departments, a traditionally difficult unit of organizational change.

University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
07/01/2015

Given the changes in instructional practices needed to support high quality mathematics teaching and learning based on college and career readiness standards, school districts need to provide professional learning opportunities for teachers that support those changes. The project is based on the TRUmath framework and will build a coherent and scalable plan for providing these opportunities in high school mathematics departments, a traditionally difficult unit of organizational change.