My scholarship is focused on supporting students' learning in middle school and high school. I study student reasoning, particularly as it relates to algebra, generalization, and proof, as well as teachers' pedagogical practices aimed at fostering meaningful student engagement. More recently, I have started studying playful math, and how to support students' playful engagement in mathematical ideas.
I have received fifteen grants from national and state organizations including the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences. I currently serve as the PI on two projects. One is an NSF-funded project investigating classroom practices that foster mathematical generalizations. This work includes scaling up findings from twelve years of teaching experiment studies to the whole-classroom level, in which my colleagues and I work with teachers to support their implementation of research-based units in algebra.
The second project is supported by an internal grant investigating what happens when we playify classroom math tasks. I maintain a strong interest in issues of equity and social justice, which informs my work with students, teachers, and districts.
Ronni Laursen is an assistant professor at Aalborg University's Department of Culture and Learning. His research interests encompass the analysis of the relationships between governance, leadership, and practice.