Candace Walkington on personalization, technology, and the future of education

When students struggle with mathematics, too often the go-to solution is more worksheets or practice tests. But what if instead of more of the same, educators branched out into using virtual reality or connecting algebra to a student’s passion for sports? That's the innovative approach championed by Candace Walkington, Ph.D., whose pioneering research is reshaping how we understand mathematical learning.

As a professor of mathematics education and learning sciences in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the Simmons School of Education at SMU, Walkington explores the intersection of technology and personalized learning experiences.

"I do research on how students learn mathematics with technology in the context of technologies like generative AI, augmented reality, virtual reality, intelligent tutoring systems, motion capture systems," explains Walkington. "And I've had a particular focus on personalizing learning to students through technology systems."

At SMU's online Master of Science in Learning Sciences program, Walkington is currently designing the embodied learning class, scheduled to be taught in the fall. She has also co-designed the program's game-based learning class, bringing her expertise in innovative learning approaches to this cutting-edge online degree program.

Walkington's academic path

Walkington's path to becoming a learning sciences innovator wasn't always clear-cut. Her academic journey began firmly rooted in mathematics, with plans that initially pointed toward the corporate world rather than academia.

"I was pursuing my bachelor's and master's in mathematics, and I was looking towards a career in finance or actuarial science," Walkington shares. However, a pivotal opportunity would alter her professional trajectory.

"I received an NSF [National Science Foundation] fellowship to support me during graduate school, which was a grant program that put mathematicians and scientists into middle schools to act as their resident scientist or resident mathematician—and specifically rural middle schools," she explains.¹

This two-year immersion in a rural middle school environment transformed Walkington's career aspirations. Working directly with students and teachers in real educational settings sparked a passion for improving mathematics education that finance simply couldn't match.

"I worked out at this rural middle school for two years, and then, based on that experience working with the kids there and the teachers, I decided to go into education rather than finance, and entered my Ph.D. program in math education at the University of Texas at Austin," she shares.

This transition from mathematics practitioner to education researcher wasn't just a change in career direction—it was the beginning of a mission to make mathematics more accessible, engaging, and effective for all learners. Her hands-on experience with middle school students had revealed both the challenges and possibilities in mathematics education, setting the stage for her groundbreaking research in personalized learning.

Pioneering personalized learning in mathematics

Walkington's time in the classroom sparked what would become her defining research focus: personalizing mathematics to connect with students' individual interests and experiences.

"I was really interested when I entered my Ph.D. in this idea of personalizing learning to students' interests based on my time in the classroom," she explains. "I did a lot of activities with the kids where I tried to make these connections to things they were interested in, things that they had experienced. We did a lot of projects."

This classroom-inspired approach led her to collaborate with an educational technology organization during her doctoral studies at UT Austin, investigating how their intelligent tutoring system could be enhanced through personalization.

Her dissertation study broke new ground by examining how algebra could be taught through the lens of students' popular culture interests. "For my Ph.D. dissertation, I did a study on personalizing math to students' popular culture interests in areas like sports or music or movies–teaching algebra in the context of these interests," she says.

The results were remarkable. "We got really strong results to my dissertation study, where we found that if we made these personalized connections to students' interests, they not only learned more in the short term, but in future units, where the content was no longer personalized, they were still learning more," Walkington notes.

This powerful finding suggested that personalized learning creates a stronger foundation that continues to benefit students even when they move on to content outside of that context. The significance of this work didn't go unnoticed in the academic community.

"My dissertation study was featured on the cover of Education Week, and that was really an exciting thing to happen as a junior scholar," she shares.

This early success propelled Walkington to expand her research, securing more funding to conduct extended studies on personalization interventions. Her work evolved to explore more open-ended methods and student ownership, looking at how students could create their own personalized connections between their interests and mathematical concepts.

"The research kind of progressed and morphed over the years. I started focusing more on students coming up with their own personalized connections, like their own—they construct how things they're interested in are related to what they're learning in algebra," she explains.

Embracing technology in educational innovation

Walkington's research has progressively embraced increasingly sophisticated technologies to enhance mathematics learning.

"I started getting into some technologies beyond intelligent tutoring systems that are more embodied like augmented reality and virtual reality," she explains. This exploration of embodied learning—where physical movements connect to mathematical concepts—led to significant recognition.

"I won the [Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers] for my work on embodied learning with a motion capture technology where students make motions with their bodies. Those motions are sensed by the sensor, and those motions are related to geometry principles that they learn in our system," Walkington shares.

"We created a motion capture game called the Hidden Village, in which you make the body motions, and you solve geometry problems," she describes. The game goes beyond passive learning by enabling students to create their own content: "That game also has an element where you make up your own geometry tasks, and then you make your own motions to go with them, and then you can program them in the game for other people to play."

Walkington's technological innovations don’t stop there. "I've also been creating virtual reality and augmented reality apps and games where you're interacting with these digital objects," she says. "With our AR and VR geometry simulations, you can grab shapes with your hands and resize them, all in three dimensions."

Another application takes mathematics beyond the classroom walls: "I created an app called Mathfinder, where you go on math walks in your community. And there's augmented reality tools and overlays that you use in the app to better understand the mathematics you're encountering in your everyday surroundings."

While these technologies were primarily developed for research purposes, Walkington's work has influenced commercial educational technology. Walkington’s original research on personalization systems was taken up by companies like Carnegie Learning, where principles of the work were integrated into products like intelligent tutoring systems. By conducting rigorous studies and sharing findings with technology developers, Walkington's research directly shapes how educational technology evolves, bringing cutting-edge learning science into classrooms and training environments worldwide.

From research to the classroom: Building the online MSLS

Walkington brings her wealth of expertise in technology-enhanced learning and embodied cognition to SMU's online Master of Science in Learning Sciences program, where she is designing innovative courses that will prepare the next generation of learning scientists.

Walkington designed the embodied learning course and co-designed the game-based learning course. This curriculum development draws directly from her groundbreaking research in motion-based learning and educational gaming.

What excites Walkington about the MSLS program is its unique positioning at the intersection of theory, application, and emerging technologies. "I love how we're really balancing important theories of how people learn with practical implementation of these in real workplace and school settings, with all of these really cool emerging technologies like generative AI and augmented reality," she explains.

This combination of elements is what sets SMU's program apart in the educational landscape. "I think this is something that hasn't really been done anywhere else, and we're really on the bleeding edge of it at SMU," Walkington says.

The program's fully online format is another aspect that Walkington finds particularly valuable. "It's also exciting that it's a fully online program. This is really going to open up access to the expertise that we have at SMU," she says. "We're really going to take advantage of how technology now allows us to network with people in sophisticated ways who are in very different geographical places."

This accessibility promises to enrich the program with diverse perspectives. "It will allow us to get more of a diversity of the people who take our classes and really grow our programs," she adds.

Dr. Walkington emphasizes that SMU has assembled an expert team of faculty to deliver this innovative program. "We have the right group of people here who have that expertise and can really be leaders in this area and train the next generation of leaders through the master's program," she states.

The faculty's deep expertise in emerging technologies gives the program a distinct advantage. "We have a faculty who have been doing the really hard work of engaging with these technologies before they got to the point where they were ready for public consumption," Walkington explains. "I was one of the faculty who was using GPT before ChatGPT came out."

This early adoption and research focus positions the faculty as true experts in their fields. "This really gives our faculty an advantage where we have this deep knowledge of these learning innovations, because we've been there from the beginning. And we've been some of the important voices and leaders with these technologies and with cutting-edge ideas in the learning sciences from the beginning," she says.

At the cutting edge of learning science

Looking toward what’s on the horizon for education and training, Walkington identifies transformative opportunities in the learning sciences field—particularly at this pivotal moment when technological innovation is reshaping how we learn, teach, and train.

"This is an incredibly exciting time to be in learning sciences and educational technology because of the world-changing transformations we're seeing," she emphasizes. "The introduction of generative AI has fundamentally changed the learning sciences. It has fundamentally changed education as an enterprise."

This technological revolution is creating substantial demand for learning sciences expertise. "This is an industry that we're going to see a lot of demand for people with this expertise, and not a lot of people who have this expertise because it's so new," Walkington points out. "Generative AI is being integrated into every major educational platform. It has all sorts of training applications."

Beyond AI, Walkington sees augmented and virtual reality reaching a critical accessibility threshold similar to what happened with generative AI. "We've had them for a while, but getting them to a place where people can use them relatively easily and cheaply, that's just happening now," she explains. "It's like generative AI existed. But until Chat GPT came out, it wasn't accessible to the level where everyone could use it in their daily lives."

This increasing accessibility of AR and VR promises to revolutionize educational experiences. "Once we get there, it's also going to have a huge effect on education and training and the possibilities for what we can do, how we can have these multimodal simulations that engage all of your senses, and that feel real, and that allow you to layer virtual objects over the real world," she envisions.

Walkington identifies two major challenges facing the learning sciences field: "One is how to confront really pressing issues with equity and access to learning, the differential access that marginalized learners and marginalized members of the workforce have to a high-quality education."

The second major challenge centers on effectively integrating generative AI into educational practices. "How do we create learning tasks and learning experiences that really leverage it as a strength rather than trying to police its use and try to artificially constrain students from using it when in the real world it's probably going to be well integrated into their workplace?" she poses.

SMU's Master of Science in Learning Sciences program prepares students to address these challenges through a curriculum designed around today’s issues in education. "We have a really good variety of courses for students to take, all of which focus on very contemporary and applied issues in education, everything from learning analytics to learning theory foundations, to AI, to embodiment, to game-based learning," Walkington notes. "With all of the big movements going on right now, students have the opportunity to take courses that really focus on them."

For professionals considering the program, Walkington suggests focusing on their passions and how the degree can help propel them to those goals. "It's important for potential students to consider what they're passionate about in terms of workforce training or education, and how a program like this can kind of help them advance it to the next level and make them more competitive on the market," she advises.

The program's flexibility accommodates diverse interests and goals, making it a truly personalized learning experience—embodying the very principles that drive Walkington's research. "We're a very personalized program," she affirms, echoing the core values that have defined her groundbreaking work in learning sciences.

For those passionate about transforming how people learn through technology and evidence-based approaches, the online MSLS program offers a pathway to becoming part of this evolution. As artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and other emerging technologies continue to reshape the learning landscape, SMU's MSLS graduates will be at the forefront, creating more effective, engaging, and accessible learning experiences for all. To learn more about the online M.S. in the Learning Sciences program at SMU, schedule a call with an admissions advisor.