Dr. Courtney Koestler has served as the director of the OHIO Center for Equity in Mathematics and Science since 2014 and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education in the Patton College of Education at Ohio University. Before coming to OHIO, they were an Assistant Professor of Research and Practice at the University of Arizona in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies.
Dr. Koestler earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master’s in Teaching from George Mason University, and a B.S. in Elementary Education from Ohio University. They are a proud, former public school teacher, previously working as an elementary and middle school teacher, as well as a K-5 instructional coach, in culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse communities.
Dr. Koestler’s scholarly interests and expertise center on diversity, equity, justice, and critical literacies in early childhood-elementary education, teacher education, and mathematics education. They draw on several bodies of work including culturally relevant pedagogies, funds of knowledge approaches to teaching, and critical theories and use qualitative methods to study how teachers’ conceptions of mathematics, mathematics education, and issues of equity, diversity, and justice evolve when engaged in methods courses, diversity courses, and professional development collaborations and how to support teachers in taking up more equitable- and justice-oriented approaches to teaching.
In their most recent work (Connecting Math to the Real World, National Science Foundation Award # 2101456 and #2101463), they build on their past research to expand and explore how elementary mathematics teachers adapt, design, and enact tasks that connect mathematics to real-world issues. They have recently engaged with colleagues in a summer camp with elementary school children and in elementary classrooms in two sites (Appalachia Ohio and the Pacific Northwest) where they taught third grade. With research teams at OHIO and Portland State, they are developing a collection of exemplar tasks, and examining both the development and enactment of these tasks. They are in the process of developing “records of practice” with their rich data sets to use in teacher preparation and professional development settings to continue their lines of inquiry.
In the past few years, they have also published several books, including three children’s books that support learners to use data to understand real world issues. They have also lead-authored a book that is part of a series for teachers and teacher educators that centers mathematics lessons to explore, understand, and respond to social injustice. Additionally, Dr. Koestler is currently working on an edited volume of cases from mathematics teacher educators that describe how developing and supporting “community” can help to advance action towards more equitable and just opportunities.