Judit Moschkovich, Professor of Education
Email: jmoschko@ucsc.edu
Office: Social Sciences 1, Room 235
Phone: 831-459-2004
Fax: 831-459-4618
Office Hours: Days/times vary each quarter. See signup sheet on office door.

Bio | Selected Publications | Projects | Plenaries/Key Notes
Teaching at UCSC | Awards and Grants

Teaching at UCSC

Education 185B, Introduction to Teaching Mathematics (Winter)

This course provides an introduction to views of learning mathematics and approaches to teaching secondary mathematics. Students examine different perspectives on mathematics learning and teaching and participate in discussions of both content and pedagogy grounded in relevant readings, interviews with children, classroom cases, or classroom data (videotapes, audiotapes, transcripts, interviews, and written student work).

Note: This course is part of the Subject Matter Waiver Program for Secondary Mathematics. This course counts as an elective for the Minor in Education.

The course is intended for:

• Undergraduate mathematics, natural sciences, engineering, computer science, or environmental studies majors who are considering becoming secondary mathematics teachers.
• Undergraduates who may not be math or science majors but have taken mathematics courses through at least calculus, have an interest in teaching mathematics, and are considering teaching in upper elementary grades (grades 4-6).

 EDUC 228, Mathematics Education: Research and Practice (Fall)

The course focuses on understanding how students learn mathematics. The course provides an introduction to theoretical approaches to learning mathematics in secondary classrooms and to the research that is the basis for national and state mathematics teaching standards. The course provides a) a survey of current theories of mathematical thinking, cognition, and learning and b) an introduction to current research on student learning for two secondary topics, proportional reasoning and algebraic thinking.

EDUC 261, Thinking, Learning, Teaching

This course critically examines multiple theoretical perspectives on thinking, learning, and teaching. We consider development as it occurs in a variety of settings (including home, school and community), the roles that thinking, learning and teaching play in that development, and how researchers’ and educators' conceptions of thinking, learning, and teaching shape instruction.

EDUC 281, Conceptual Change in Science & Mathematics Education

The course examines approaches in cognitive science, mathematics education, and science education to documenting student conceptions in science and mathematics, defining conceptual change, and describing the relationship between conceptual change and learning with understanding. The readings for the course draw on multiple perspectives including developmental psychology, analogies to the history of science and mathematics, the “misconceptions” view, and critiques of that view. Conceptual change concerns broad and deep changes in a person’s ideas and conceptions in a particular domain. This course begins by examining research on intuitive conceptions and conceptual change in both mathematics and science. We then examine the distinction between errors, bugs, and conceptions (“right” or “wrong” ones) and consider critiques of the misconceptions view. Lastly we consider how research on student conceptions and conceptual change can inform instruction.

EDUC 253, Research Design in Mathematics & Science Education

The course examines multiple approaches to research design in mathematics and science education and aims to clarify the nature of principles that guide research design in mathematics and science education. A primary goal is to explore research designs that are currently used by education researchers examining mathematics/science learning and teaching, have distinctive characteristics when they are used in projects that focus on mathematics/science learning and teaching; and may be especially productive for research on mathematics/science learning, teaching, or the implementation of innovative programs of mathematics/science instruction. The course emphasizes research designs that are intended to increase the relevance of research to practice. Examples of such research designs include teaching experiments, clinical interviews, videotape analyses, action research studies, and ethnographic observations.