Candace Walkington

Dr. Candace Walkington is an Annette and Harold Simmons Centennial Chair, Professor, in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Southern Methodist University, specializing in mathematics education. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University, and she is a former NSF-GK12 Fellow and community college mathematics professor. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from University of Texas at Austin. She was also an IES Postdoctoral Fellow in Mathematical Thinking, Learning, and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Walkington was a recipient of a Spencer Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Grant. In 2019, Dr. Walkington received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the U.S. Department of Education. While at SMU, she has received over $12 million worth of grants as PI or co-PI, from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Walkington serves as an Executive Editor of Cognition and Instruction.

Dr. Walkington’s research examines how abstract mathematical ideas can become connected to students’ concrete, everyday experiences and “funds of knowledge,” such that mathematical ideas are more understandable. She conducts research on “personalizing” mathematics instruction to students’ out of-school interests in areas like sports, music, shopping, and video games, and their intended careers like nursing or software design. She currently is PI on an NSF iTEST grant which examines teachers usin Large Language Models (LLMs) to personalized middle school mathematics instruction to students' interests. She is also PI on an NSF AISL grant, which focuses on creating a mobile place-based game for math walks in informal learning environments.

Dr. Walkington’s research further examines ways to connect mathematical practices with physical motions including gestures, using AR, VR, and motion capture technologies. Dr. Walkington's research further examines ways to connect mathematical practices with physical motions including gestures, AR, VR, and motion capture technologies. She currently is PI on a grant from the U.S. Department of Education examining how Augmented Reality (AR) technologies can allow students to collaborate using shared holograms of geometric shapes. Her work draws on embodied and distributed theories of cognition.

Dr. Walkington teaches courses for pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers at SMU. She is the Chair of the STEM Programs Committee in the Department of Teaching and Learning.

Recent Publications

Walkington, C., Nathan, M.J., Washington, J., Hunnicutt, J., Darwin, T., Daughrity, L., & Schenck, K. (accepted). Comparing Learning Geometry using a Tablet to Head-Mounted Display Augmented Reality: How and When Dimensionality Matters. Education and Information Technologies.

Walkington, C., Bernacki, M., Leyva, E., & Istas, B. (accepted). When Am I (N)ever Going to Use This? How Algebra is Used in STEM-Related Careers. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education.

Walkington, C., & Bernacki, M. (2020). Appraising research on Personalized Learning: Definitions, theoretical alignment, advancements, and future directions. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 52(3), 235-252. DOI: 10.1080/15391523.2020.1747757

Walkington, C., Bernacki, M., Vongkulluksn, V., Greene, M., Darwin, T., Leyva, E., Istas, B., Hunnicutt, J., Washington, J., & Wang, M. (2024). The Effect of an Intervention Personalizing Mathematics to Students’ Career and Popular Culture Interests on Math Interest and Learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 116(4), 506–531. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000840

Walkington, C., Nathan, M.J., Hunnicutt, J., Washington, J., & Zhou, M. (2024). New kinds of embodied interactions that arise in Augmented Reality Dynamic Geometry Software. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 75, 10175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101175Beauchamp, T., & Walkington, C. (2024). Mathematics Teachers Using Generative AI to Personalize Instruction of Students’ Interests. AMTE Connections. https://amte.net/connections/2024/05/connections-thematic-articles-artificial-intelligence-mathematics-teacher

Walkington, C., Nathan, M.J., Huang, W.+, Hunnicutt, J., & Washington, J. (2023). Multimodal Analysis of Interaction Data from Embodied Education Technologies. Educational Technology Research & Development, 1-20. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-023-10254-9

Smith, C., & Walkington, C. (2019). Four principles for designing embodied mathematics activities. Australian Mathematics Education Journal, 1(4), 16-20.

Walkington, C., Clinton, V., & Sparks, A. (2019). The effect of language modification of mathematics story problems on problem-solving in online homework. Instructional Science, 47(5), 499-529. doi: 10.1007/s11251-019-09481-6

Walkington, C., Woods, D., Nathan, M.J., Chelule, G., & Wang, M. (2019). Does restricting hand gestures impair mathematical reasoning? Learning and Instruction, 64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2019.101225

Pier, E. L., Walkington, C., Clinton, V. E., Boncoddo, R., Williams-Pierce, C., Alibali, M.A., & Nathan, M. J. (2019). Embodied Truths: How Dynamic Gesture and Transformational Speech Contribute to Mathematical Proof Practices. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 58, 44-57.

Walkington, C., Chelule, G., Woods, D., & Nathan, M.J. (2019). Collaborative gesture as a case of extended mathematical cognition. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 55, 1-20.

Walkington, C., & Bernacki, M. (2019). Personalizing Algebra to Students’ Interests: How Student Funds of Knowledge Moderate Outcomes. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 29, 58-88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-018-0168-1