Kate Kline

Kate Kline received her doctorate in 1994 from the School of Education at the University of Michigan. She has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Michigan and an Assistant Professor in the Mathematics Department at Eastern Washington University before joining the faculty in the Department of Mathematics at Western Michigan University in 1997. She has taught undergraduate courses in mathematics and mathematics education to preservice elementary teachers as well as graduate courses in mathematics education. She has had several years teaching experiences at the preschool and elementary school levels and continues to be involved with local school districts through research and professional development. Kate’s research has spanned from elementary school children’s mathematical thinking and reasoning to elementary school teachers’ implementation of curriculum programs that support learning mathematics with understanding. At the beginning of her time at Western, she co-directed Renewing Mathematics Teaching Through Curriculum (RMTC), a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded professional development program for middle school and high school teachers. In addition, she co-directed Implementing Investigations in Mathematics (InMath), an NSF-funded professional development program for elementary school teachers.  In both projects, teachers received over 100 hours of professional development and a cadre of teacher-leaders were developed, many of whom remain active leaders in mathematics education today. Later, she become a member of the Center for the Study of Mathematics Curriculum, an NSF Center for Teaching and Learning, developed by WMU, Michigan State University and the University of Missouri.  She was the lead liaison with Kalamazoo Public Schools, the partner school district in the project. More recently, she investigated the ways in which elementary school students engaged in mathematical argument by classifying the types of claims they made and the justifications they developed to support those claims.  Currently, she is focusing her work on preschool mathematics.  She has designed a course on early childhood mathematics for the new elementary teacher certification program at WMU.  She is also a member of a MiSTEM working group that has designed a course on young children’s mathematical thinking for Early Childhood Specialists in Michigan.