On September 19, the Department of Educational Psychology kicked off its Ed Psych Research Colloquium series with a talk by Sashank Varma, Bonnie Westby Huebner Chair and professor in the psychological foundations of education program. Varma’s presentation, “From Mathematical Thinking to Computational Thinking,” centered on the philosophical question: How do people come to understand mathematical concepts?

Varma shared that over the past 50 years, cognitive scientists have provided new answers to this question in research investigating the mental representations and processes underlying understanding of the natural numbers (0, 1, 2, …) and arithmetic operations defined on this concrete number class.

Varma described how his research is advancing beyond the current frontier. He discussed his prior studies on how people use symbol systems to understand more abstract number classes such as the integers, rationals, and irrationals. Varma also shared his current research on mathematical insight and other forms of mathematical thinking that might be predictors of success in STEM fields.

Finally, he previewed his emerging research program bridging from mathematical thinking to computational thinking. As an example, Varma shared the work he and his students are doing to address the question: How humans are sometimes able to efficiently solve problems that computers find difficult?

About the Ed Psych Research Colloquium

In 2019, Department of Educational Psychology faculty will be giving monthly research presentations in the new Ed Psych Research Colloquium. The goal is to create a face-to-face experience that builds the department’s community of scholarship. The next Department of Educational Psychology Research Colloquium is schedule for October 17 and will feature John W. and Nancy E. Peyton Faculty Fellow in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing Professor Clayton Cook’s research.