Ilana Horn '93
Assistant Professor
Math Education
University of Washington
"You won't believe what a full circle I've come. I launched into this math ed world, thinking it was a departure from the kinds of cool math stuff we did at Swarthmore, and it turns out that I'm hooked in with the Park City Math Institute ... and running into people involved in the Math Forum and all that...
And, while I wouldn't ever admit to feeling energetic ... I can honestly say that a Swarthmore math major was pretty much ideal for what I'm up to now. Thanks to y'all, I'm a math person who can (a) write without angst (b) code switch (i.e. have reasonable conversations with mathematicians and non-mathematicians) and (c) make strides toward social justice through math education. There aren't many places that can prepare people for this kind of work... .
And from the University of Washington website:
Dr. Horn's specialization is secondary mathematics, with a focus on issues of classroom teaching and learning, the influence of departmental organization on both students' and teachers' learning and identities, teacher communities, and equity-geared reforms. She teaches the secondary math methods course in the Teacher Education Program as well as graduate seminars in Curriculum and Instruction and Cognitive Studies. Her dissertation research examined the informal learning of high school mathematics teachers engaged in reform. For this work, she received both the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education Outstanding Dissertation Award and the American Educational Research Association Division K Outstanding Dissertation Award.
Her current research questions include:
- What kinds of teachers beliefs, practices, and school contexts support effective teaching of underprepared students in high school mathematics classes?
- How do teaching practices, curricular organization, and school contexts co-construct students' mathematical identities?
