Grayson Wheatley is an advocate for special education for the academically gifted student. Currently, a large proportion of the resources goes for the educationally challenged or learning disabled student.. He feels that this is a great imbalance with respect to the future of the country. If you look at what the academically gifted student has to offer, they should be receiving as much per-capita funding as the learning disabled student. Wheatley believes that the best way of providing for students it to improve the educational program for all students, but feels that it is very challenging for a teacher to provide for this upper percent of students who have special talent while at the same time providing for the average and learning disabled student.

In his work on the role of images in mathematics and science reasoning Grayson holds that imagistic-based reasoning plays a far more important role in the work of today's scientists than is generally acknowledged. He examines the complex processes of image construction, re-presentation, and transformation and outlines the characteristics of students who are successful in constructing, re-presenting, and transforming.

Wheatley promotes constructivism as a basis for mathematical epistemology and emphasizes the importance of environment to the learning of mathematics. Specific factors which, in his view, make a difference in increasing student understanding of mathematical concepts are: instructional materials, learning environment, staff development, and specific targeted mathematics constructions of students. Wheatley's definition of a learning environment is: the instructional strategies and negotiation of social norms in the classroom. Specific targeted constructions are defined as those constructions that students make as they solve problems.

Publications

The Role of Images in Mathematics and Science Reasoning

Constructivism in teacher education

Problem Solving in the Primary Grades

One Point of View: Spatial Sense and Mathematics Learning

Research into Practice: Enhancing Mathematics through Learning Imagery

Research into Practice: Spatial Sense and the Construction of Abstract Units in Tiling

A Student's Imaging in Solving a Nonroutine Task

Image Maker: Developing Spatial Sense

Third-Grade Students Engage in a Playground Measuring Activity

Research into Practice: Calculators and Constructivism