Math Teacher · Doctoral Student · Walnut, CA

Yizhen (Stephen) Jia

I teach math, and I study how students decide whether they really understand the work they hand in.

01 · About

Reasoning, not just answers

I teach math, from grade-school basics to SAT Math and AP Calculus, and I am working on a doctorate in education. What interests me is not just the answer on the page but how a student got there, and whether they could do it again alone.

My research at Westcliff University asks an old question in a new situation: when an AI tool helped with the homework, how does a student decide the work is ready to hand in, and where does their own understanding fit in? Two preprints grew out of that question.

The classroom and the research share one question: how do we know what a student really understands? Everything on this page is a different angle on that problem.

02 · Teaching

  • SAT Math & AP Calculus InstructorElite Open School · Rowland Heights, CASince 2024
  • HS Statistics & Pre-CalculusBay Area Technology School · Oakland2024
  • K–8 Math Tutor, 50+ studentsS.A.M Singapore Math · Belmont2023/24

03 · Research

Handing in work that AI helped with How first-year college students decide, in their own words, whether math homework done with AI help is ready to submit.
Charts, graphs, and what they show How students turn real data into charts, and what those charts reveal about their understanding.

04 · Education

  • EdD, Leadership, Curriculum & InstructionWestcliff UniversitySince 2024
  • M.S. Applied Mathematics & StatisticsStony Brook University2023
  • B.S. MathematicsStony Brook University2021

Q · Learning site

Quidence · Mathematics & Science

Choose a course in mathematics, statistics, or introductory physics, review an idea, and test your understanding with problems that have several parts. Your work stays in your browser.

→ Open Quidence Q
Preprint · EdArXiv 2026

The Absent Cognitive Baseline

Theorizing a structural gap in AI-native college students' academic self-assessment · with Jiarui Xu

The paper suggests that when an AI tool does the thinking before a skill has formed, a student may be left with nothing of their own to compare against when they ask themselves whether they understand.

→ Read more EdArXiv
Preprint · EdArXiv 2026

Metacognitively Discordant Completion

The aware pass-through of non-understanding in generative AI learning

With AI, a student can hand in work that is correct and complete while knowing, at that moment, that they do not understand it. This paper gives that experience a name and works out what it is.

→ Read more EdArXiv
Scoping review · Interim version

Graphicacy in the Generative AI Era

A PRISMA-ScR scoping review of an emerging three-way intersection in education · with Jiarui Xu

The review maps the studies where charts, generative AI and learning meet. This interim version shows the search and the studies found so far, as of about mid-June 2026.

→ Read more OSF