About MTV | Our Team

The Making Thinking Visible Team

Janice D. Gobert, Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the Making Thinking Visible Project and Senior Research Scientist at The Concord Consortium. Janice is a Cognitive Scientist and Science Educator. For MTV, she oversees all aspects of project including: leading the research effort, designing the coding schemes for students' data directing the statistical analyses of these data, and overseeing the classroom implementations, staff, and consultants.

Amy Pallant, B. A. in Geology, Ed.M in Science Education. She is a Senior Science Education Researcher at the Concord Consortium. She has worked on several NSF funded science and technology curriculum development projects. She leads the curriculum development process, provides teacher support in Massachusetts during implementations, codes data related to students' content learning, and provides guidance to graduate students working on the project regarding content coding.

Consultants and Interns

Ricky Y. Tang, Consultant on the Making Thinking Visible project and Graduate Student in the EMST program at UC-Berkeley provides WISE curriculum help, and supports teachers during classroom implementations.

Brandy Canwell-Schmirer, B.A. in Geology and M. A. in Science Education, provided teacher support in Massachusetts during the Spring 2001 implementation of the curriculum, and coded students' content data on the project over the summer of 2001.

Tracy Gilroy, B. A. in Geology, M. A. in Masters in Science Education. Tracey provided teacher support in Massachusetts during implementation of the curriculum, and coded students' content data on the project over the summer of 2001. Tracey also helped in the development of the curriculum. Tracy is currently teaching Earth Science Quaboag Regional Middle School and implemented the What's on your plate? curriculum in the Spring of 2002.

Carolyn Houghton, Consultant, provided teacher support in Massachusetts during implementations of the curriculum for both 2001 and 2002 classroom implementations, developed the coding scheme for nature of models data, and coded data regarding students' pre and post-unit understandings of models.

Jessica Epstein. B.A. in Geology, M. A. in Science Education. Jessica was a Research Assistant on the MTV project from its start date. She did background research, developed a prototype curriculum, and worked on data analysis for a study that proceeded Making Thinking Visible Project. She currently teaches Earth Science at Chenery Middle School in Belmont Massachusetts and implemented the What's on your plate? curriculum in the Spring of 2002.

Brian Nelson, Consultant, Doctoral Student, Technology in Education Program, Harvard University, designed dynamic models for the "What's on your plate?" curriculum. These models included: a model of mantle convection and how it effects plate movement, an oceanic-oceanic plate convergence model, an oceanic-continental plate convergence model, and a continental-continental plate convergence model.

Sandra Nagy is a Masters Student Intern from the Technology in Education program at Harvard University. She analyzed data with regard to value of the distance learning and on-line communication among students using the curriculum. He also developed a FileMaker Pro database to store the data from the Spring 2001 implementation.

Elliot Targum is a Masters Student Intern from the Technology in Education program at Harvard University. He analyzed data with regard to value of the distance learning and on-line communication among students using the curriculum. He also developed a FileMaker Pro database to store the data from the Spring 2001 implementation.

Alison Eizenberg, is a Masters Student from the Technology in Education program at Harvard University. She provided teacher support in Massachusetts during implementations of the curriculum.

Middle School Teachers

James MacNeil, Science Chairperson and Teacher at the Peabody Middle School in Concord, Massachusetts, had two classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation.

Tara Hallowell, Teacher at the Peabody Middle School in Concord, Massachusetts, had five classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation.

Sharon Moss, Teacher at the Sanborn Middle School in Concord, Massachusetts, had five classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation.

Polly Vanasse, Teacher at the Nashoba Brooks Middle School in Concord, Massachusetts, had two classes participate in the Spring 2001implementation.

Ariel Owen, Teacher at the Foothill Middle School in Walnut Creek, California, had six classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation and six in the Spring 2002 implementation.

Pat Rynerson, Teacher at Truman Middle school in Los Angeles, California had two classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation and two in Spring 2002 implementation.

Jessica Epstein, Teacher at Chenery Middle School in Belmont Massachusetts, had five classes participate in the Spring 2002 implementation.

Jon Marks, Teacher at Chenery Middle School in Belmont Massachusetts, had five classes participate in the Spring 2002implementation

Tracey Gilroy, Teacher at Quaboag Regional Middle School in Amherst Massachusetts, had three classes participate in Spring 2002 implementation

Jeff Parrish, Teacher at the Foothill Middle School in Walnut Creek, California, had five classes participate in the Spring 2002 implementation.

Holly Estes, Teacher at the Hale Middle School in Stow Massachusetts, had 5 classes participate in the Spring 2002 implementation.

High School Teachers

Karen Martin, Teacher at Medford High School in Medford, Massachusetts, had one class participate in the Spring 2001 implementation. Karen also helped in the development of the curriculum for the 2001 implementation of the project.

Wilson Flight, Teacher at Concord Carlisle High School in Concord, Massachusetts, had two classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation. Wilson also helped in the development of the curriculum for the 2001 implementation of the project..

Ray Pavlik, Teacher at Concord Carlisle High School in Concord, Massachusetts, had four classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation.

Dan Bega, Teacher at Kennedy High School in Fremont, California, had four classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation.

Tony Stoopin, Teacher at Kennedy High School in Fremont, California, had two classes participate in the Spring 2001 implementation.

Partner Organizations

Our primary partner is UC Berkeley. The Making Thinking Visible Project uses the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) developed by Marcia Linn and her team at the University of California-Berkeley. The Making Thinking Visible project used WISE for the curriculum development and implementation for both the 2001 and 2002 implementations.

Other Collaborators

Dr. Marcia Linn and Dr. Jim Slotta of UC Berkeley are collaborating on this project. The large scale WISE project is under the direction of Drs. Linn and Slotta. Doug Kirkpatrick, Consultant, is also collaborating on this project by providing technical and pedagogical support towards the development of the curriculum in WISE. Additionally, he provides teacher support in California during classroom implementations.

We presently have a grant proposal pending to the National Science Foundation to include (in addition to California and Massachusetts) Hawai'i, Alaska, Washington State, Israel, Peru, Argentina, Japan, and Iceland regarding a collaboration which would involve extending the scope of work on Making Thinking Visible. This potential collaboration will also include empirically testing supports for students' communication about graphical representations as well as their discourse.