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Jen Richards

Jen Richards

She/Her/Hers
  • Research Assistant Professor

Contact

jrichards@northwestern.edu
2001 Sheridan Rd, Room 3439, Evanston, IL 60208
Curriculum Vitae

Organization or Lab

The Baxter Center for Science Education

Academic Area

Learning Sciences

Affiliated Center(s)

Freezing Time Research Group

Research Interests

Teacher learning; responsive learning environments; science education; research-practice partnerships.

Biography

My research focuses on two interconnected strands primarily within the context of science education. First, I co-design and study ways of cultivating responsive learning environments for both students and educators — spaces within K-12 settings that take learners’ ideas, experiences, motivations, and directions seriously. Building on this asset-based framing, I also explore resources existing within educators’ current thinking and practice that can contribute to ambitious, responsive forms of teaching and assessment. I intentionally engage in this work in partnership with practicing teachers, school district partners, and students.

Education

  • PhD, Science Education, University of Maryland, 2013
  • MEd, Secondary Science Education, University of Maryland, 2008
  • BA, Biology, Political Science, University of Delaware, 2006

Selected Publications

Larison, S., Sherin, M. G., & Richards, J. (2025). Productive teacher noticing of critical events in an online video-based professional development course. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education. 

Tekkumru-Kisa, M., & Richards, J. (2025). Multidimensional noticing for teaching science-as-practice. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 62(8), 1982-1998.  (Finalist for 2026 NARST/NSTA Research Worth Reading Recognition)

Anderson, E. R., & Richards, J. (2024). Practical measures of science teacher learning: Conceptualizing organizational functions and affordances. Science Education, 109, 238-265.  

Richards, J. (2023). Exploring resources for responsiveness to student thinking in practice. Journal of Teacher Education. (Link to accepted manuscript version.)

Larison, S., Richards, J., & Sherin, M. G. (2022). Tools for supporting teacher noticing about classroom video in online professional development. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education.

Richards, J. (2022). Exploring focused responsiveness as an approach to facilitation in professional learning. In C. Chinn, E. Tan, C. Chan, & Y. Kali (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences – ICLS 2022 (pp. 985-988). Hiroshima, Japan: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Sherin, M. G., Richards, J., & Altshuler, M. (2021). Learning from recording video of your own classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 103(2).

Richards, J., Altshuler, M., Sherin, B. L., Sherin, M. G., & Leatherwood, C. J. (2021). Complexities and opportunities in teachers’ generation of videos from their own classrooms. Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction, 28(4), 100490.

Richards, J., Elby, A., Luna, M. J., Robertson, A. D., Levin, D. M., & Nyeggen, C. G. (2020). Reframing the responsiveness challenge: A framing-anchored explanatory framework to account for irregularity in novice teachers’ attention and responsiveness to student thinking. Cognition and Instruction, 38(2), 116-152.

Thompson, J., Richards, J., Shim, S-Y., Lohwasser, K., Von Esch, K., Chew, C., Sjoberg, B., & Morris, A. (2019). Launching networked PLCs: Footholds into creating and improving knowledge of ambitious and equitable teaching practices in an RPP. AERA Open, 5(3), 1-23.

Robertson, A. D., & Richards, J. (2017). Teacher sense-making about being responsive to students’ science ideas: A case study. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5(4): 314-342.