Kristen A. Malzahn

Kristen A. Malzahn, Senior Researcher at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI), received a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, IN and a Master’s degree in Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Prior to joining HRI in 2001, she taught at the elementary level for five years and was a lead teacher for a mathematics professional development initiative in Durham, NC. At HRI, Ms. Malzahn has worked on the evaluation of a number of mathematics education projects, including NSF’s Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement Initiative, where she was responsible for coordinating project communications and assisting with the facilitation of professional development and training sessions for evaluators; Learning and Teaching Geometry, a materials research and development project designing video-based mathematics teacher professional development materials for middle grades teachers; and Visual Access to Mathematics, a research project studying the professional learning supports middle grades teachers need to help English Learners access mathematics and improve their problem solving abilities. She also directed the work on Fostering Mathematics Success of English Language Learners, a research project that studied the efficacy of the Fostering Geometric Thinking Toolkit. In addition, she helped disseminate data gathered from the 2000, 2012, and 2018 iterations of the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education. Ms. Malzahn currently serves as a co-PI of a collaborative research project aimed at designing and examining a professional development program to help elementary teachers promote meaningful mathematics discourse in the classroom. She leads the evaluation of Using Technology to Capture Classroom Interactions, a validity study of the Math Habits Tool, which examines the interactions between teaching routines and student engagement in mathematics. Ms. Malzahn is also helping with the evaluation of the Think Math + C: Integrating Programming into a Comprehensive K–5 Mathematics Curriculum project. In addition, she is a team member of the Peers Engaged as Resources for Learning research project designed to investigate small group learning environments in middle grades mathematics classrooms.