Melissa Gresalfi is the Associate Director for the Center for Research on Learning and Technology (CRTL), and an Assistant Professor of Learning and Cognitive Science at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Melissa Gresalfi Indiana University School of Education 1900 E. 10th Street Eigenmann 532 Bloomington, IN 47406 mgresalf@indiana.edu

“One of the really interesting things about the learning sciences is the focus not just on individual people, but on understanding what individual people do based on their context, situation, or environment. So rather than thinking of some people as ‘smart’ and others as ‘dumb,’ we can think about how contexts support people in ACTING in smart or less smart ways. Suddenly, the world as we understand it gets flipped on its head.”

I do what I do because I am convinced that the world as we experience it is a result of social structuring, rather than individual potential. It’s fascinating that being considered “knowledgeable” is at least as much about how particular forms of knowledge are valued as it is about individual actions. My research considers students’ mathematics learning in different contexts, specifically considering the kinds of dispositions that students develop towards mathematics. The potential findings from these projects give me hope that the kinds of inequalities that seem to be so intrinsic to our educational system and to our society could be changed.