Jennifer Knudsen

Knudsen is an educator who works at intersection of design and research, with a focus on mathematics—its applications as well as its disciplinary practices. She and her team aim to improve access to high-quality educational experiences with a focus on historically marginalized students and their teachers.

She and her colleagues use innovative performatory approaches for learning to teach these practices, in the project Visualize Teaching and prior work. Another current project, MPACT, uses “making” as a way into geometry, spatial reasoning, and computational thinking.

In past work, Knudsen has led over a decade of research and design of professional development to help teachers learn to engage middle-grades students in deeply mathematical discourse. She is lead author of the book Mathematical Argumentation in Middle School: The What, Why, and How. She has also co-authored articles on teaching and learning math through problem-based curriculum and through real-world contexts. She was the curriculum director of Middle-school Mathematics Through Applications Project (MMAP),

Knudsen was a high school math and computer science teacher in New York City public schools, where she learned about teaching from the heart and mind. She holds a BA with a focus on mathematics from the Evergreen State College, where she developed her love for both learning and mathematical argumentation