Professor Don Brown Named Tools Competition Winner

The University of Virginia's School of Data Science is pleased to announce that professor Don Brown, the school's senior associate dean for research, and his Mathematical Discourse Teaching Simulator team are among the winners of the 2022-23 Tools Competition, a multimillion-dollar contest that funds edtech tools and technologies. 

The team -- which included Brown; Jim Bywater, an assistant professor of learning, technology, and leadership education at James Madison University; and Jennifer Chiu, an associate professor with UVA's School of Education and Human Development -- proposed a simulation tool that will give pre-service mathematics teachers the opportunity to practice and hone their skills at fostering discourse in the classroom. The team will receive $50,000 to develop these simulations. 

The Tools Competition received more than 1,000 proposals from 73 countries this cycle. The 32 winning teams will be awarded more than $4 million to develop their proposed tools. Georgia State University and The Learning Agency administer the competition. 

Brown is the Quantitative Foundation Distinguished Professor in Data Science and was the founding director of UVA's Data Science Institute.