Vanessa Simmering

Vanessa Simmering
  • Assistant Director of Learning Maps

Contact Info

Personal Links

Biography —

Vanessa Simmering, PhD, leads the learning maps team at ATLAS, which develops and refines learning maps that are the basis of Dynamic Learning Maps® alternate assessments. The team also contributes to research and development projects that provide map-based resources that increase access to academic content for all learners, support teachers’ use of learning maps to inform instructional decision-making, and build educator capacity in the intended use of the learning maps.

Simmering is the Assistant Director of Learning Maps at Accessible Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Systems (ATLAS), a research center at the University of Kansas with more than 150 staff and more than $20M in annual revenues.

Simmering earned a PhD in psychology with a focus on cognitive development and dynamic systems models of behavior, cognition, and development. She began her career as a professor of psychology, with research interests in the co-development of cognitive skills like language and memory during early childhood. She moved into the education industry, working on innovative approaches to integrating learning and assessment in computerized environments and the role of metacognitive and other non-academic skills in learning and assessment. She joined the learning maps team to continue her research on cognitive models and the diverse pathways that can lead to successful learning.

Education —

Ph.D. in Developmental Science, University of Iowa

Selected Publications —

Journal Articles

Miller-Goldwater, H.E., & Simmering, V.R. (2022). Examining the role of external language support and children’s own language use in spatial development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 215, 105317. 

Perone, S., Simmering, V.R., & Buss, A.T. (2021). A dynamical reconceptualization of executive function development. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 16, 1198-12018.

Miller, H.E., Andrews, C.M., & Simmering, V.R. (2020). Speech and gesture production provide unique insights into young children’s spatial reasoning. Child Development, 91, 1934-1952.   

Miller, H.E., Kirkorian, H., & Simmering, V.R. (2020). Using eye-tracking to understand relations between visual attention and language in children’s spatial skills. Cognitive Psychology, 117, 1001264.   

Rosen, Y., Stoeffler, K. & Simmering, V.R. (2020). Imagine: Design for creative thinking, learning, and assessment in schools. Journal of Intelligence, 8(2), 16. (Special Issue: Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Processing in Future-Focused Learning; J. Lee & L. Stankov, Eds.) 

Arieli-Attali, M., Ou, L., & Simmering, V.R. (2019). Understanding test takers’ choices in a self-adapted test: Hidden Markov modelling of process data. Frontiers in Psychology: Quantitative Psychology and Measurement, 10, 83. (Research Topic: Process Data in Educational and Psychological Measurement; H. Jiao, Q. He & B. Veldkamp, Eds.)

Cochrane, A.K., Green, C.S., & Simmering, V.R. (2019). Fluid intelligence is related to capacity in memory as well as attention: Evidence from middle childhood and adulthood. PLoS ONE.  

Perone, S. & Simmering, V.R. (2019). Connecting the dots: Finding continuity across visuospatial tasks and development. Frontiers in Psychology: Developmental Psychology, 10: 1685.  

Simmering, V.R., Ou, L., & Bolsinova, M. (2019). What technology can and cannot do to support assessment of non-cognitive skills. Frontiers in Psychology: Quantitative Psychology and Measurement, 10: 2168. (Research Topic: Advancements in Technology-Based Assessment: Emerging Item Formats, Test Designs, and Data Sources; F. Goldhammer, R. Scherer, & S. Greiff, Eds.)

Miller, H.E. & Simmering, V.R. (2018). Children’s attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 172, 107-129. 

Miller, H.E., Vlach, H.A., & Simmering, V.R. (2017). Producing spatial words is not enough: Understanding the relation between language and spatial cognition. Child Development, 88, 1966–1982.  

Miller, H.E., Patterson, R., & Simmering, V.R. (2016). Language supports young children’s use of spatial relations to remember locations. Cognition, 150, 170-180.

Simmering, V.R. (2016). Working memory capacity in context: Modeling dynamic processes of behavior, memory, and development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 81(3), 7-148.  

Simmering, V.R. & Miller, H.E. (2016). Developmental improvements in visual working memory resolution and capacity share a common source. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78, 1538-1555.

Horst, J.S. & Simmering, V.R. (2015). Category learning in a dynamic world. Frontiers in Psychology: Cognition, 6, 46. (Research Topic: The Impact of Context on Category Learning; R. Hammer & V. Sloutsky, Eds.)

Invited Chapters and Conference Proceedings 

Arieli-Attali, M., Ward, S.J., Simmering, V.R., Rosen, Y., & von Davier, A.A. (2022). Leveraging ideas from adaptive testing to adaptive learning: The HERA showcase. In H. Jiao & R.W. Lissitz (Series Eds.) The MARCES Book Series:  Enhancing Effective Instruction and Learning Using Assessment Data (Vol. 10, pp. 215-236). Information Age Publishing, Inc. 

Rosen, Y., Stoeffler, K., Simmering, V.R., Hao, J., & von Davier, A.A. (2021). Development of scalable assessment for collaborative problem solving. To appear in U. Cress, C. Rose, A.F. Wise, & J. Oshima (Eds.) International Handbook on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. (Vol. 19, pp. 517-532). Springer, Cham.

Refereed Conference Proceedings 

Rosen, Y., Arieli-Attali, M., Seery, J., Ward, S., Simmering, V.R., Ozersky, L., Stoeffler, K., & Webster, K. (2020). HERA: Exploring the power of adaptive scaffolding on scientific argumentation and modelling competencies in online learning systems. In Gresalfi, M. and Horn, I. S. (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020, Volume 3 (pp. 1665-1668). International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Rosen, Y., Stoeffler, K., Yudelson, M., & Simmering, V.R. (2020). Towards scalable gamified assessment in support of collaborative problem-solving competency development in online and blended learning. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual Learning at Scale Conference.

Ou, L., Hofman, A., Simmering, V.R., Bechger, T., Maris, G., & van der Maas, H. (2019). Modeling person-specific development of math skills in continuous time: New evidence for mutualism. In M.C. Desmarais, C. Lynch, A. Merceron, & R. Nkambou (Eds.) Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Educational Data Mining. (pp. 327-377). International Educational Data Mining Society.

Simmering, V.R., Ou, L., & Bolsinova, M. (2019). A cross-disciplinary look at non-cognitive assessments. In M. Wiberg, S. Culpepper, R. Janssen, J. González, & D. Molenaar. (Eds.) Quantitative Psychology. IMPS 2018. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics, vol 265. (pp. 157-167). Springer.

Selected Presentations —

Invited Addresses, Panels, and Colloquia

Innovations in learning and assessment solutions for 21st-century skills. (2019, February). Keynote address in Research in Assessment and Student Evaluation. Global Educators Forum, Beijing, China. 

New trends in educational competencies, assessment, and college admissions. (2019, February). Panel discussion with Z. Chen and D. Nicholas, facilitated by R. Weissman. Global Educators Forum, Beijing, China. 

In-the-moment influences on visual working memory capacity and development. (2018, June). Invited session, Making Working Memory Work. Expanding the Field Workshop, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. 

Developing new ways to measure attention in young children. (2016, December). Brown Bag Seminar, Ripon College, Ripon, WI. 

Bridging visual working memory research from infancy through adulthood using dynamic systems models. (2016, July). In V. Camos (Chair) Working Memory Development. Invited symposium at the 31st International Congress of Psychology, Yokohama, Japan.  

Taking a dynamic systems perspective on cognitive development. (2016, May). Cognition and Development Brown Bag Seminar, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. 

Conference Papers and Symposia

Rosen, Y., Arieli-Attali, M., Seery, J., Ward, S., Simmering, V.R., Ozersky, L., Stoeffler, K., & Webster, K. (2020, June). HERA: Exploring the power of adaptive scaffolding on scientific argumentation and modelling competencies in online learning systems. In Design-Based Research and Modeling. Paper presented at the 14th biennial International Conference on the Learning Sciences. [conference held virtually due to coronavirus pandemic] 

Ou, L., Hofman, A., Simmering, V.R., Bechger, T., Maris, G., & van der Maas, H. (2019, July). Modeling person-specific development of math skills in continuous time: New evidence for mutualism. In Educational Systems and Psychometrics. Paper presented at the 12th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 

Miller, H.E., Kirkorian, H., & Simmering, V.R. (2019, March). Using head-mounted eye-tracking to understand effects of language on children’s spatial skills. In H.E. Miller (Chair) Process-Based Approaches to Understanding Spatial Development: The Role of Attention, Language, And Gesture. Paper presented at the 72nd Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD.  

Young, A.G., Ou, L., & Simmering, V.R. (2018, November). Young children’s collaboration in an active category learning task. In B. Wyble (Chair) Conceptual Processes. Paper presented at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA. 

Rosen, Y., Simmering, V.R., & Yudelson, M. (2018, October). Fostering learning solutions: Evidence centered design and scalable technologies. Paper presented at the 2018 Educational Technology & Computational Psychometrics Symposium, Iowa City, IA.  

Ou, L., Hofman, A., Simmering, V.R., Maris, G., van der Maas, H. (2018, July). Continuous-time mutualism model of intelligence development. Paper presented the joint 51st Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology and 16th Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Cognitive Modelling, Madison, WI. 

Simmering, V.R., Ou, L., & Maris, G. (2018, July). A cross-disciplinary look at non-cognitive assessments. In G. Maris (Chair) Non-cognitive Psychometric Theory and Assessment. Paper presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, New York, NY. 

Andrews, C.M., Leuenberger, R., Kovack-Lesh, K.A., & Simmering, V.R. (2018, June). How does attention influence looking versus pointing? Eye-tracking in a novel touchscreen paradigm. In L. Colosimo (Chair) Action, Perception, and Learning. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

Miller, H.E., & Simmering, V.R. (2018, May). Using eye-tracking to understand the complex relations between attention and language in children’s spatial skill development. In L.K. Perry (Chair) Kids in Space: The Dynamic Coupling between Space and Language Development. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

Miller, H.E., & Simmering, V.R. (2016, November). Examining language and gesture in spatial reasoning. In J. Sutton (Chair) Spatial Cognition. Paper presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, MA.

Grants & Other Funded Activity —

“Strengthening the Validity of the National Assessment of Educational Progress through Increased Student Engagement in Technology-Enhanced Assessments”, National Center for Education Statistics through American Institute of Research (Research & Development Contract), co-PI (PI: Yigal Rosen), 2019-2020, $200,000 (total) 

“Understanding Visual Memory Capacity using Neural Field Modeling over Development”, National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (1 R03 HD067481), PI, 2011-2013, $100,000 (direct)

Memberships —

  • Cognitive Development Society 
  • Cognitive Science Society 
  • Delta Center (Affiliate) 
  • International Society of the Learning Sciences 
  • McPherson Eye Research Institute 
  • Psychonomic Society (Fellow) 
  • Society for Research in Child Development 
  • Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (Spatial Network Member) 
  • Vision Sciences Society