Featured Speakers

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Cathy Fosnot

Cathy Fosnot is Professor Emerita of Childhood Education at the City College of New York, where she was the Founding Director of Mathematics in the City, an NSF-funded, internationally-acclaimed, center for mathematics professional development, K-8. In 2004 she received the Teacher of the Year Award from CCNY. Cathy has authored over 40 books on mathematics education, most recently Conferring with Young Mathematicians at Work, the Contexts for Learning Mathematics series (currently 43 curriculum units, 13 children’s books, and growing), the Young Mathematicians at Work series (4 books), and A Parent’s Guide to Math Education in Today’s Schools. Early in her career, Cathy was awarded the AECT/ECTJ Young Scholar Award for her research and writing on educational technology. Cathy currently serves as the senior content consultant for the award-winning Seattle-based internet math environment DreamBox Learning and is the President of New Perspectives on Learning, New Perspectives on Assessment, and New Perspectives Online.

Karen Karp

Karen Karp is a Professor at the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University where she works with doctoral students. She recently completed twenty-one years at the University of Louisville as a Distinguished Teaching Professor in Elementary Mathematics Education and is a Professor emeritus. She has more than 25 books written on elementary mathematics education including, Elementary and Middle School Mathematics Teaching Developmentally (with Van de Walle and Bay-Williams). She also has written more than 45 articles including her article with Bush and Dougherty in Teaching Children Mathematics entitled “13 Rules that Expire,” named by the journal as article of the year in 2015. She is a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and a former president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators. During her time on the NCTM Board she was funded by NSF to explore ways to bring the mathematics education and special education communities together to teach mathematics more effectively to students with disabilities.

Margaret Smith

Margaret (Peg) Smith is a professor Emerita at University of Pittsburgh. Over the past two decades she has been developing research-based materials for use in the professional development of mathematics teachers. She was a member of the writing team for Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All and she is a co-author of two books published in 2017 (Taking Action: Implementation Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices Grades 6-8 & 9-12) that provide further explication of the teaching practices first describe in Principles to Actions. She has authored or coauthored over 90 books, edited books or monographs, book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles including the best seller Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Discussions (co-authored with Mary Kay Stein). Her latest book (with Miriam Sherin) entitled, The Five Practices In Practice: Successfully Orchestrating Mathematical Discourse in Your Middle School Classroom will be published by Corwin in April 2019.

She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (2001-2003; 2003 – 2005), of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2006-2009), and of Teachers Development Group (2009 – 2017). She was the founding editor of the journal Mathematics Teacher Educator, which is co-published by NCTM and AMTE. In 2006 she was selected to receive the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award given annually to honor outstanding faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2009 she received the award for Excellence in Teaching in Mathematics Teacher Education from the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators. In 2010 she received the Susan Loucks-Horsley award from the National Staff Development Council in recognition of her efforts to promote professional learning in mathematics. In 2018 she gave the Judith Jacobs lecture at the annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.

Mariam Small

Marian Small, the former Dean of Education at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, writes and speaks about K-12 math around the world. Her focus is on teacher questioning to get at the important math, to include and extend all students, and to focus on critical thinking and creativity.
Some resources she has written include Making Math Meaningful for Canadian Students: K-8, Big Ideas from Dr. Small (at several levels), Good Questions: A Great Way to Differentiate Math Instruction, More Good Questions: A Great Way to Differentiate Secondary Math Instruction, Eyes on Math, Gap Closing (for the Ministry of Education in Ontario), Leaps and Bounds toward Math Understanding (at several levels), Uncomplicating Fractions, Uncomplicating Algebra, Building Proportional Reasoning, Open Questions for the Three-Part Lesson (at several levels), Teaching Mathematical Thinking, and is currently authoring MathUp, a new digital teaching resource, Fun and Fundamentals for Early Childhood for preschool and primary teachers, and Making it happen:How can a school leader build math capacity and math performance in a school?

Grace Kelemanik

Grace Kelemanik, co-founder of Fostering Math Practices, has more than 30 years of mathematics education experience. A frequent presenter at national conferences, her work focuses on fostering mathematical thinking practices in all students. She is a former urban high school mathematics teacher and Project Director at Education Development Center. Grace has also worked extensively with new and preservice teachers through the Boston Teacher Residency program. Grace is the coauthor of Routines for Reasoning: Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students. She is a mathematics education consultant and professional development provider. Follow Grace on Twitter @GraceKelemanik

Sara VanDerWerf

Sara Van Der Werf, Minnesosta, is a 25 year educator teaching diverse students in urban middle and high schools. She has led K-12 mathematics. Sara has worked for Minneapolis Public Schools for over 25 years as a middle and high school mathematics teacher to a diverse group of learners. In addition to teaching, Sara has led K-12 Mathematics for the district in addition to other coaching and mentoring postions.