Student & Alumni Profiles

Jacalyn Crowe

Degrees: A.S. Civil Engineering; M.Ed. Harvard University

Although I began my professional career as an engineer, I have been teaching at the secondary level for nearly twenty years. I taught mathematics and science (and sometimes reading and art) at the middle school level for about a decade. More recently, I have been teaching physics in a local suburban high school.

I enrolled in the Tufts MSTE program to learn how I might use research in the classroom to evaluate and improve instructional practice. The structure and flexibility of the program has allowed me to pursue this goal while continuing to work full-time as a teacher and administrator. In my dissertation study I will closely examine the content of student dialogues related to their understanding of Newtonian concepts. I hope to identify their existing mental models about force and motion and how those models may be affected by their interactions with peers.