For a while now, perhaps ever sense I was introduced to a “lab” model of scientific and education research, I’ve wondered, what is a lab? How do I build my own “lab”?
In working on this, I came to the following conclusions:
I am the leader of my own lab. My lab is focused on understanding and supporting students’ meaningful learning of mathematics.
The people whom I share my work with are a part of my lab. My grad student, for example, is in my lab. The students, teachers, and other researcher collaborators I work with are a part of my lab. A lot of our time and effort and intellectual energy is represented in the various projects we’ve worked on together.
My lab is grounded in my practices of writing, reading, teaching, and systematically studying learning to better understand the human experience of meaningful learning of mathematics.
Lately I’ve been adopting a multi-dimensional lens on being. This involves awareness and study of: cognitive (thinking, e.g., mathematical equivalence, covariation and correspondence), emotional (feeling, e.g., anxiety), social (participating, e.g., representing, creating), and bodily (sensing, e.g., perception) dimensions of experience.
Largely I have come to this multi-faceted lens as a way to understand my own experiences, on and off my yoga mat.
I drew this sketch to represent some of the ongoing work in my lab. Much of the work is collaborative. All if it is focused on students’ meaningful learning of mathematics.
Again and again I find that by expressing ideas in writing, in pictures, or other visual imagery that I learn. Sketching to learn, learning to sketch.
Nicole L. Fonger 
One thought on “Dr. Nicky. The Scientist.”