Hi! My name is Felicia Shen. I’m a rising senior in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences pursuing a major in Psychology, a minor in Applied Statistics, and a certificate in Children’s Literature. I was born and raised in the United States, but I went to high school in Shanghai, China. As a result of this experience, I became interested in the different curriculums, learning methods, and teaching styles between the US and China, especially when it comes to STEM education and language learning.
This summer, I’ve been fortunate to receive the Brackenridge Fellowship through the David C. Fredrick Honors Colleges, so I can devote my entire summer towards my independent research project. I currently work in the Kids’ Thinking Lab at the Learning Research and Development Center with my research mentor, Dr. Melissa Libertus. This lab investigates young children’s early concepts about numbers and how they may contribute to later math skills. This summer I’ve got a unique opportunity to collaborate with another Psychology researcher, Dr. Einat Heyd-Metzuyanim to investigate the use of money talk within math talk that leads to teaching opportunities between parent and child in pretend Grocery play. The Grocery task is a common game that many children are familiar with that employs math in an applied and meaningful context through money. This leads to many teaching opportunities, such as the parent choosing to teach their child how to count money, add or subtract numbers, and employ other mathematical processes.
This project examines the idea of learning is a set of repeated actions that later turn into a ritual or routine. Thus, we are examining various tasks, procedures, and narratives that the child or parent creates within pretend Grocery play. Furthermore, we are also examining if there are any gaps, such as whether or not there is a gap in understanding the task, the procedure being done, or the final narrative. Overall, this project is an excellent opportunity to examine how parents use a mundane common activity to teach their kids mathematical processes, as well as emphasize the importance of pretend play to teach children about real-world concepts.
My current professional goals after my undergraduate career are to apply for graduate school, hopefully, a PhD in Developmental Psychology and later a degree in Educational Psychology. At the moment, I am really enjoying research as a way to examine various learning processes, particularly when it pertains to math learning or language learning. The Brackenridge Fellowship offers me the opportunity to develop the skillset I need to succeed in research, such as improving my communication skills about my research to people in or out of my field, designing the appropriate study for my research, and learning to extract and interpret data.