Zolkower's research focuses on how teachers mediate whole-class conversations within the context of nonroutine mathematical problem solving. Her views on math instruction, curriculum design, teacher training and classroom research articulate a Vygotyskian perspective on teaching and learning, the realistic approach to math instruction (under development in the Netherlands since the late 1960s around the work of Freudenthal), and selected tools from M.A.K. Halliday's functional grammar.
