mathematics

Karen Marrongelle

Karen Marrongelle is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Karen Marrongelle rather than just read about it. In short: Karen Ann Marrongelle is an American mathematics educator and specialist in collaborative learning in mathematics. In 2018, she was appointed head of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation.

Key takeaways

Karen Marrongelle belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Karen Marrongelle to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Karen Marrongelle from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Karen Ann Marrongelle is an American mathematics educator and specialist in collaborative learning in mathematics. In 2018, she was appointed head of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation. She previously was the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Portland State University.

Early life and education Marrongelle attended Allentown Central Catholic High School in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and then Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, where she majored in mathematics and also served on the executive board of Albright's radio station, WXAC, and graduated in 1995. After earning a master's degree in mathematics at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1997, she completed her doctorate in mathematics education at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, where her dissertation was Physics experiences and calculus: How students use physics to construct meaningful conceptualizations of calculus concepts in an interdisciplinary calculus/physics course.

Career In 2001, Marrongelle became a faculty member in the department of mathematics and statistics at Portland State University. She took a leave from Portland State to work at the National Science Foundation from 2007 to 2009. At Portland State, she was assistant vice chancellor for academic standards, vice chancellor for academic strategies, and interim dean of liberal arts and sciences. In 2015, she was appointed dean. As dean, she led a proposal to eliminate Portland State's language programs in Ancient Greek, Swahili, Korean, and Vietnamese.

Publications With Ping Li, Marrongelle is the author of the book Having Success with NSF: A Practical Guide, published by Wiley in 2013. In 2015, Marongelle became one of the three founding editors-in-chief of the Springer mathematics education journal International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, a post she held until 2019.

References

External links Biography at National Science Foundation

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Karen Marrongelle

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Karen Marrongelle claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Karen Marrongelle before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Karen Marrongelle ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Karen Marrongelle

In research: Karen Marrongelle appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Karen Marrongelle in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Karen Marrongelle is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century American mathematicians, 20th-century American women mathematicians, 21st-century American mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Karen Marrongelle outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Karen Marrongelle in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Karen Marrongelle means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Karen Marrongelle out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Karen Marrongelle in simple terms?

Why does Karen Marrongelle matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Karen Marrongelle?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Karen Marrongelle.