Professional Development Philosophy
All professional development workshops for math educators need to foster their “mathusiasm” (math + enthusiasm). We all need opportunities to do math, to explore and play with content in an effort to develop a fuller, deeper, more flexible understanding of concepts. We must be enthusiastic as we think more deeply about simple ideas and practice engaging in thoughtful mathematical discourse.
If we want to foster empowered and curious math geeks in our classes, we must practice being them ourselves outside of the classroom. It’s from this practice of inquiry that we can begin to build a discussion around the classroom instructional practices that are effective at producing the type of competent, curious, and confident math students we want to create.
Lesson Study
Visit my Lesson Study page to find research and data that support my work using lesson study as one of the most effective ways to foster professional growth for teachers and mathematical learning for students. If you would like to see some of the outcomes of recent lesson studies I’ve conducted with teachers, check out my write-ups on my Lessons page.
Workshops
I enjoy facilitating everything from custom one-day workshops to multi-day retreats and have orchestrated professional learning opportunities in a variety of forms for teachers and school leaders. You can read more about some of the workshops I’ve led for educators here, here, here, and here.
Speaking
I enjoy speaking to and inspiring audiences large and small and have presented at several conferences in California and nationally since 2006. Recently, I gave an Ignite! talk at the annual CMC South conference in Palm Springs this past November. You can watch it here or read more about it in these posts.
