Rate My Professor Erik Jacobson

Erik Jacobson is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University Bloomington's School of Education, a position he has held since 2019 following his tenure as Assistant Professor from 2013 to 2019. He also serves as Affiliate Faculty in the Cognitive Science Program since 2015. Earlier in his career, Jacobson taught high school mathematics courses including Algebra I and II, Geometry, Math Applications, Probability, and Statistics at Bellows Falls Union High School in Vermont from 2004 to 2008. While pursuing graduate studies at the University of Georgia, he served as Instructor of Record for Number and Operations for Mathematics Teachers from 2012 to 2013 and as Teaching Assistant from 2011 to 2012. Jacobson earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics Education with a Qualitative Studies Certificate from the University of Georgia in 2013, an M.A. in Mathematics from the same institution in 2011, and a B.A. in Mathematics cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2004.

Jacobson's research examines how mathematics teachers develop knowledge and beliefs—including those related to equity and diversity—that support effective instruction. He is principal investigator on the National Science Foundation grant Assessing the Structure of Knowledge in Teaching Mathematics (2016–2021, $1,675,183), which develops multidimensional assessments of pedagogical content knowledge for teaching fractions and decimals to explore reciprocal relationships among knowledge, practices, and student learning. Another project, Mathematics Teachers' Beliefs and Practices, investigates preservice teachers' perceptions of student gender, race/ethnicity, and mathematical brilliance in relation to instructional decisions. His publications appear in journals such as the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, including "Diagnosing teachers’ understandings of rational numbers: Building a multidimensional test within the diagnostic classification framework" (Bradshaw, Izsak, Templin, & Jacobson, 2014), "Measuring mathematical knowledge for teaching fractions with drawn quantities" (Izsák, Jacobson, de Araujo, & Orrill, 2012), "Preservice teachers' reasoning about relationships that are and are not proportional: A knowledge-in-pieces account" (Izsák & Jacobson, 2017), and "Field experience and prospective teachers’ mathematical knowledge and beliefs" (Jacobson, 2017). Jacobson received the American Educational Research Association Dissertation Grant Award ($20,000, 2013), Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators STaR Fellowship (2014), University of Georgia Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (2013), and Presidential Graduate Fellowship (2008–2013). He teaches courses such as F203 The Mathematics of Learning: Modeling Data in Education and Our World and N103 Teaching and Learning Elementary School Mathematics.