Dr. Deborah Schifter
AMTE Conference Featured Judith Jacobs Lecture Speaker:
Dr. Deborah Schifter
Interpreting the Common Core: What might it look like in classrooms?
Deborah Schifter, Principal Research Scientist in the Learning and Teaching Division of the Education Development Center (EDC), has more than 25 years of experience providing professional development in mathematics and conducting research on student mathematics learning. Recently she has focused on sup-porting teachers adopting the mathematical practices in the Common Core State Standards and on understanding the potential for algebraic thinking in the elementary grades. Dr. Schifter leads EDC’s Mathematics Leadership Program (MLP), which provides coordinated professional development experiences for educational leaders across a range of roles and responsibilities. She is coauthor of MLP’s Developing Mathematical Ideas. She is coeditor of A Research Companion to Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, coauthor of The Mathematical Education of Teac-ers, Reconstructing Mathematics Education: Stories of Teachers Meeting the Challenge of Reform, and editor of a two-volume anthology of teachers' writing, What's Happening in Math Class? Dr. Schifter is coauthor of the second edition of the K–5 curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space and coauthor of the forthcoming Connect-ing Arithmetic to Algebra.
Dr. Schifter has been a member of the editorial board of Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education since 2001. She was a writer for the Mathematical Education of Teachers Project and has either chaired or been a member of numerous advisory committees for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Science Foundation. She is a frequent collaborator with colleagues at TERC and SummerMath for Teachers at Mount Holyoke College.
She is an inaugural fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education. AERA awarded her its Professional Service Award in 1996, and the Constructivist Research, Theory, and Practice Special Interest Group recognition for Significant Contribution to the Profession in 1999.
Before joining EDC, Dr. Schifter taught elementary, secondary, and college-level mathematics and was an applied mathematician at the Naval Research Laboratory. In 1985, she began working for SummerMath for Teachers at Mount Holyoke College and directed that program from 1988 to 1993. She received a BA from Saint John's College, Annapolis, an MA in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland, and an MS and PhD in psychology from the University of Massachusetts.
Session Description: Deborah Schifter will present samples of student work and classroom video that illustrate teachers and students engaging with a constellation of content and practice standards related to the Common Core's emphasis on the properties of the operations.