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Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity (2009)

Chapter: Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
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Page 363
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
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Page 364
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
×
Page 365
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
×
Page 366
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
×
Page 367
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
×
Page 368
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
×
Page 369
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2009. Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12519.
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Page 370

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Appendix C Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff Christopher T. Cross (Chair) is chairman of Cross & Joftus, LLC, an edu- cation policy consulting firm. He has been a senior fellow with the Center for Education Policy and a distinguished senior fellow with the Education Commission of the States. He also serves as a consultant to the Broad Foundation and the C.S. Mott Foundation and is on the board of direc- tors of TeachFirst. From 1994 to 2002 he served as president and chief executive officer of the Council for Basic Education. Previously he served as director of the education initiative of the Business Roundtable and as assistant secretary for educational research and improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. He chaired the National Assessment of Title I Independent Review Panel on Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Educa- tion in 1995-2001 and the National Research Council Panel on Minority Representation in Special Education in 1997-2002 and was a member of the International Education and Foreign Language project in 2006-2007. He has written extensively in the education and public policy areas and has been published in numerous scholarly and technical publications. He has a B.A. from Whittier College and an M.A. in government from California State University, Los Angeles. Oscar Barbarin is the L. Richardson and Emily Preyer bicentennial distin- guished professor for strengthening families in the School of Social Work and a fellow of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His work has focused on understanding the roles that families play in preschool child competence, including the links between home and school, the early learning needs of 363

364 MATHEMATICS LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD African American children and families, early childhood mental health, ethnic and gender-based achievement gaps, and the factors associated with and outcomes of preschool quality. He conducted a longitudinal study of child development in South Africa after the end of apartheid and authored Mandela’s Children: Child Development in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Currently, he is leading studies targeting the academic needs of boys of color and their families. He recently organized and led the International Conference: Developmental Science and Early Schooling, sponsored by the Society for Research in Child Development, the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, and the Foundation for Child Development, which involved presentations and discussion of issues of translating research into practice. He has a B.A. from St. Joseph’s Seminary College, an M.A. in counseling psychology from New York University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in psychology from Rutgers University. Sybilla Beckmann is professor of mathematics at the University of Georgia. Her mathematics research is focused on algebra/group theory, arithmetic geometry/algebraic number theory, commutative algebra/algebraic geom- etry, and tilings of the plane. She recently completed the second edition of Mathematics for Elementary Teachers, along with an activities guide and an instructor resource guide. Her recent work has focused on professional development of pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers, including preparing mathematicians to teach mathematics content to teachers and directly leading professional development workshops with teachers of math- ematics. She was a member of the Curriculum Focal Points writing team conducted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. In addition, she was a member of an expert panel on mathematics teacher preparation for the National Research Council Committee on Teacher Preparation. She also taught a daily class of sixth grade mathematics during the 2004-2005 school year. She has a Sc.B. in mathematics from Brown University and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania. Sue Bredekamp is director of research for the Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition in Washington, DC. In her current role, she de- velops resources related to the administration of the Child Development Associate National Credentialing System. Previously, during her tenure at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, she devel- oped the accreditation system for early childhood programs and coauthored the initial and revised edition of Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs. Throughout her career, she has focused on promoting the professional development of the early childhood workforce and developing standards for practice, also serving as a consultant to nu- merous programs and initiatives. She has a B.A. in English, an M.A. in

APPENDIX C 365 early childhood education, and a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with concentrations in early childhood education and human development from the University of Maryland. Douglas H. Clements is professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has led a number of initiatives aimed at identifying the key standards for early childhood mathematics, including participating in the writing group of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ Curriculum Focal Points to specify what mathematics should be taught at each grade level. In addition, he led a joint initiative between the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to produce a joint position statement on the mathematics education of young children. He is also a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel created by President George W. Bush. His research and publications have focused on early childhood mathematics development, particularly children’s development of geometry skills and the use of computers in mathematics education. He has also coauthored a number of curriculum products based on his Curriculum Research Framework, including a pre- school curriculum, Building Blocks, which includes print, manipulatives, and the Building Blocks software, as well as extensions of that software up through the grades. He has a B.A. in sociology, an M.Ed. in elementary and remedial education, and a Ph.D. in elementary education from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also has permanent certification to teach in the State of New York at the nursery, kindergarten, and first through sixth grade levels. Karen C. Fuson is professor emerita at the School of Education and So- cial Policy at Northwestern University. Her recent work has focused on the continued development and revisions of Children’s Math Worlds, a research-based program for students in kindergarten through fifth grade developed over 10 years in a wide range of classrooms and now published as Math Expressions. This research focused on developing a research-based coherent sequence of supportive representations and classroom structures through extensive classroom-based research and using analysis of curricula and strategies from a variety of countries. Through the years Fuson has de- voted particular attention to the teaching of mathematical understandings and skills from age 2 to 8 and has also done extended research concerning the mathematics learning of Latino and urban children. She has studied and published widely on children’s development of number concepts and arithmetic operations, word problem solving, as well as on mathematics education pedagogy. At the National Research Council, she was a member of the Mathematics Learning Study Committee. She has a B.A. in math-

366 MATHEMATICS LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD ematics from Oberlin College and an M.A.T. in mathematics education and a Ph.D. in teacher education with emphases in mathematics and psychology from the University of Chicago. Yolanda Garcia is director of the E3 Institute Advancing Excellence in Early Education at WestEd in San Jose, California. In this role, she supervises the Compensation and Retention Encourages Stability Program as well as other efforts to improve local early education in a variety of settings and program types through professional development, recruitment, and financial incen- tives. In addition, she is engaged in research to determine the impact of such programs on child outcomes. Her other research interests have focused on preschool English language learners and language development. Previously she served for 20 years as director of the Children’s Services Department of the Office of Education of Santa Clara, California, overseeing services for more than 3,000 children in Head Start, state preschool, and other child care programs. She has served as a fellow in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a senior program officer for the Charles Mott Foundation, focusing on strategies for grant programs on early educa- tion and family support. She was a member of the Head Start Quality and Improvement Panel and the National Research Council’s Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. She has an M.A. in education administration from San Jose State University and an M.S. in social services administration with an emphasis in child welfare and public policy from the University of Chicago. Herbert Ginsburg is the Jacob H. Schiff Foundation professor of psychol- ogy and education at Teachers’ College, Columbia University. He is also professor in the Department of Mathematics Education and a Fulbright senior specialist. His research interests have focused on intellectual develop- ment and education, especially among poor and minority children, devel- opment of mathematical thinking, mathematics education and assessment, and the professional development of teachers. His current research involves evaluating Big Math for Little Kids, an early childhood mathematics cur- riculum he coauthored; examining the use of web-based video vignettes as a professional development tool; and studying computer-guided mathematics assessments for children. He is the author of numerous books, chapters, articles, and reviews, as well as several mathematics textbooks. He is a codeveloper of the Test of Early Mathematics Ability. He has a B.A. in social relations from Harvard University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in developmental psychology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Nancy C. Jordan is professor of education at the University of Delaware. Since 1998 she has been principal investigator of a federally funded project

APPENDIX C 367 on children’s mathematics difficulties and disabilities. She is the author or coauthor of many articles in mathematics learning difficulties and most recently has published articles in Child Development, the Journal of Learn- ing Disabilities, Developmental Science, and the Journal of Educational Psychology. Her work focuses on early prediction and prevention of math- ematics difficulties and connections between mathematics and reading dif- ficulties. She has a B.A. from the University of Iowa (phi beta kappa), an M.A. from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in education from Har- vard University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she taught elementary school children with special needs. She also taught and did clinical work in the Center for Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Sharon Lynn Kagan is the Marx professor of early childhood and family policy, codirector of the National Center for Children and Families; and associate dean for policy and director of the Office of Policy and Research at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has examined the effects of policies and institutions on the development of children from birth to age 8 and their families, with particular interest in low-income children; private-public collaboration in service delivery; and standards, professional development, organizational change, and family support. Currently, she is working with UNICEF on the development, validation, and implementation of early learning standards in 40 countries. She is chair of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Accountability, coauthor of a recent book on the early childhood teaching workforce, director of the Policy Matters Project, and a consultant to states, foundations, and political leaders on early child- hood pedagogy and practice. She was president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and of Family Support America and chaired the National Education Goals Panel work on readiness. She has been a member of national panels on Head Start and Chapter I and was a member of the Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy at the National Research Council. Early in her career, she was a Head Start teacher and director. She is the recipient of the Conant award from the Education Com- mission of the States, the Distinguished Services award from the Council of Chief State School Officers, and the McGraw Hill prize. She has a B.A. in English with a teaching certificate from the University of Michigan, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and an Ed.D. in curriculum and teaching from Columbia University. Susan C. Levine is professor of psychology and chair of the Developmental Psychology Program at the University of Chicago. She has studied early mathematical and cognitive development beginning in infancy, focusing most recently on the role of mathematical language and gesture inputs by

368 MATHEMATICS LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD parents and teachers. She is coauthor of Quantitative Development Infancy and Early Childhood. Her work has focused on basic cognitive develop- mental research to understand the nature of mathematical development in such areas as early numerical development, measurement, mental rotation, and proportional and spatial reasoning. In addition, she has examined the effects of brain injury and stroke on brain and cognitive development. She has a B.S. from Simmons College and a Ph.D. in psychology from the Mas- sachusetts Institute of Technology. Kevin Miller is professor and cochair of the Combined Program in Educa- tion and Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he is also pro- fessor in the Educational Studies and Psychology Departments, the Center for Human Growth and Development, and the Center for Chinese Studies. He has conducted extensive cross-cultural research between China and the United States in the areas of cognitive and mathematical development, spe- cifically examining the role of culture, linguistics, and classroom practices in contributing to children’s learning. More recently, he has been studying how video representations of teaching and learning can be used in understanding the relations between teaching and learning and improving the preparation of prospective teachers. He is chair of the Mathematics Education Review Panel for the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Edu- cation and a member of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board at the National Research Council. He has a B.A. in psychology from Haverford College and a Ph.D. in child and school psychology from the University of Minnesota. Robert C. Pianta is the Novartis US Foundation professor of education and dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, as well as professor in the Department of Psychology. He also serves as director of the National Center for Research in Early Childhood Education and the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. His work has focused on the predictors of child outcomes and school readiness, particu- larly adult-child relationships, and the transition to kindergarten. His recent work has focused on better understanding the nature of teacher-child in- teractions, classroom quality, and child competence, through standardized observational assessment. He has also conducted research on professional development, at both the pre-service and in-service levels. He has recently begun work to develop a preschool mathematics curriculum, incorporat- ing a web-based teacher support component. He has a B.S. and an M.A. in special education from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He began his career as a special education teacher.

APPENDIX C 369 Heidi Schweingruber (Senior Program Director) is the deputy director of the Board on Science Education at the National Research Council. She codirected the study that produced the report Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (2007) and served as research associate on the study that produced America’s Lab Report: Investigations in High School Science (2005). She is currently directing a congressio- nally mandated review of precollege education programs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Previously she worked as a senior research associate at the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Depart- ment of Education, where she served as a program officer for the preschool curriculum evaluation program and for a grant program in mathematics education. She was also a liaison to the Department of Education’s Math- ematics and Science Initiative and an adviser to the Early Reading First Program. Previously, she was the director of research for the Rice University School Mathematics Project, an outreach program in K-12 mathematics education, and she taught in the psychology and education departments at Rice University. She has a Ph.D. in psychology (developmental) and anthropology and a certificate in culture and cognition from the University of Michigan. Taniesha A. Woods (Study Director) is a senior program officer in the Center for Education and the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. Her research interests include the examination of children’s educational and social out- comes in an ecological systems framework. Her recent work investigates how school reform, particularly professional development, can improve the educational outcomes of children of color and those from low-income back- grounds. Previously she was a Society for Research in Child Development and American Association for the Advancement of Science congressional fellow assigned to the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the Children and Families Subcommittee in the office of Senator Christopher Dodd, specializing in K-12 and postsecondary educa- tion issues. She has a B.A. in psychology and African and African American studies from the University of Oklahoma and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, with a formal concentration in quantitative psychology, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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Early childhood mathematics is vitally important for young children's present and future educational success. Research demonstrates that virtually all young children have the capability to learn and become competent in mathematics. Furthermore, young children enjoy their early informal experiences with mathematics. Unfortunately, many children's potential in mathematics is not fully realized, especially those children who are economically disadvantaged. This is due, in part, to a lack of opportunities to learn mathematics in early childhood settings or through everyday experiences in the home and in their communities. Improvements in early childhood mathematics education can provide young children with the foundation for school success.

Relying on a comprehensive review of the research, Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood lays out the critical areas that should be the focus of young children's early mathematics education, explores the extent to which they are currently being incorporated in early childhood settings, and identifies the changes needed to improve the quality of mathematics experiences for young children. This book serves as a call to action to improve the state of early childhood mathematics. It will be especially useful for policy makers and practitioners-those who work directly with children and their families in shaping the policies that affect the education of young children.

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