People

Matthew HoraMatthew Hora (PI)
Matthew Hora is an Assistant Professor in Adult Teaching and Learning in the Department of Liberal Arts and Applied Studies at UW-Madison, and a research scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. After several years of experience in organic agriculture and food systems research, Matt received his master's degree in applied anthropology from the University of Maryland - College Park. He earned his Ph.D. in the learning sciences from the Department of Educational Psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Matt's work specializes in the analysis of curriculum planning and classroom instruction at the tertiary level, with a focus on these issues and the effects of pedagogical reforms in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Jana Bouwma GearhartJana Bouwma Gearhart (Co-PI)
Dr. Jana Bouwma-Gearhart is a former secondary school teacher and has taught biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, biotechnology, and criminalistics in the United States, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica, and Japan. Bouwma-Gearhart received her doctorate in Curriculum & Instruction (2008) and her master’s in Science Education (2003) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she also served as a researcher for the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research (WCER), studying the effects on secondary and postsecondary participants of two programs, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) and Modeling for Understanding In Science Education program. She now works as an assistant professor at Oregon State University. Her research, broadly speaking, concerns improving STEM education at research universities. Her work has investigated STEM faculty members’ motivation towards and effects of engaging in pedagogical improvement activities and what makes for successful interdisciplinary collaborations towards STEM education improvement, including key organizational structures, activity characteristics and foci, and participant characteristics and interactions. Dr. Bouwma-Gearhart has also studied the norms of social science researchers and their potential for interaction via virtual platforms that may allow for improving the timeliness, depth, relevance, and rigor of research concerning postsecondary education.

Richard HalversonRichard Halverson (Co-PI)
Dr. Halverson's research aims to bring the research methods and practices of the Learning Sciences to the world of educational leadership. His research explores the use of data driven instructional systems in schools, and the development of game and simulation based tools for professional learning. He currently co-directs the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) study to develop an on-line, 360-degree formative evaluation system for school leadership.

Dr. Halverson's work integrates how classical ideas of wisdom and practical knowledge can be used to understand the complex work of contemporary school leaders. He has developed research methods and theoretical frameworks to access, document and communicate the expertise of school leaders.

Dr. Halverson co-founded the Games Learning and Society (GLS) research group at UW-Madison. He is a Fellow at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, and is an affiliate member of the UW-Madison Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Psychology departments, and a founding member of the UW-Madison Learning Sciences program area.

Hyoung Joon Park (Project Assistant)

Amanda OlesonAmanda Oleson (Former Project Assistant)
Amanda Oleson is a second year master’s student en route to a PhD in the Education Policy Studies program at UW-Madison.  Her interest spans psychological and institutional barriers and supports to student access and persistence both in college and in particular programs within the STEM fields.  She also interested in the PK-20 pipeline and its associated alignment policies and councils.  Very excited to be taking on new responsibilities with this mixed methods project, she looks forward to working extensively with survey measurements and developing her quantitative skills.  

Amanda OlesonJennifer Collins (Former Project Assistant)
Jennifer Collins is a third year PhD student and a graduate research assistant in Department of Science Education at Oregon State University.  She received her Master’s degree in chemistry (2009) from the University of Kentucky.  After finishing her Master’s, Jennifer taught chemistry as an instructor at the University of Kentucky for a year and at Bluegrass Community College in Lexington, Kentucky, for four years.

Jennifer’s research interests are focused on STEM teaching and learning issues at research universities. She is interested in exploring factors that motivate STEM faculty to engage in professional development activities that help improve their teaching practices.  She is also interested in examining the sources of teaching self-efficacy among STEM faculty at research universities. Currently, she is working on a research project designed to explore the relationship between faculty members’ sense of autonomy and their teaching self-efficacy beliefs.


UW-MadisonNSF

TPDM Tracking the Processes of Data Driven Decision-Making in Higher Education is housed within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation under Award #1224624. Copyright ©2012, The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.