I'm excited to have a heavy schedule of conference presentations coming up.  I will be speaking at...

* San Francisco Child Care Providers Association's 11th Annual ECE Leadership Conference on Saturday, March 18th.  I will be presenting on 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms, as well as facilitating a group discussion on early childhood policy and advocacy efforts.

* California Association for the Education of Young Children (CAEYC)'s 2017 Annual Conference and Expo on Friday, March 24th.  I will be presenting on 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms, as well as assisting at the public policy booth in the expo hall.

* Head Start Region IX Assocation's Early Childhood STEM Institute on Tuesday, March 28th and Wednesday, March 29th.  I will be presenting three workshops: 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms, design thinking for early childhood teachers, and early coding and computational thinking for ECE teachers and preschoolers.

* Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children (OregonAEYC)'s 2017 Spring Conference on Saturday, April 22nd.  I will be presenting on 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms.

Looking forward to connecting with early childhood teachers and administrators who are excited to bring more early math and STEM into their classrooms.

I'm now finished with my mid-career Ed.M. degree in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Can't believe how quickly this year went by!  So glad for all that I have learned in and out of class, for the many fascinating colleagues I've been able to grow with this year, and also for the fun we've had along the way.

Over the last year, I've been able to be a part of many amazing student organizations and courses...
* Founder of the HGSE Early Childhood Student Group; maintained list of over 150 students to connect them with opportunities; organized multiple events, including informal get-togethers, an Early Math Research workshop, and two Design Thinking for Early Childhood Innovation workshops for over seventy participants; and consulted with the HGSE Development Office

* Officer of Academic Affairs for the HGSE Student Council; organized twenty get-togethers for students & professors and two evenings of EdTalks with twenty-three students sharing their new educational initiatives and ideas, as well as conducting surveys of student needs and supporting my committee in organizing additional student-run events

* Logistics and Sponsorship Chair for the HGSE Student Research Conference; fundraised over $5000 to provide more research resources for students; collaborated with facilities and catering for over 130 research projects & over 300 participants; and ran registration, including managing the creation, ordering, and distribution of name badges & promotion materials

Related early childhood research, policy, and management course projects:
* Generating & Using Evidence in Organizations with Prof Julie Boatright Wilson- Worked for the HGSE Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching to evaluate the implementation of HGSE non-credit Special Topics Workshops, gathering qualitative & quantitative measures through interviews, focus groups, & surveys; analyzing the data; and making change recommendations
* Science-Based Innovation in Early Childhood Policy & Practice with Prof Jack Shonkoff- Researched and drafted an intervention using design thinking with new parents
* Program Evaluation with Prof Tom Kane- Outlined a long-term difference-in-differences evaluation of the NYC Universal PreK expansion
* Teacher and Teaching Quality with Prof Erica Litke- Wrote a research proposal to explore preschool teachers' math content knowledge
* Science of Behavior Change with Prof Todd Rogers- Designed a nudge for the Sesame Street Go app to encourage parent-child interaction
* Multi-Level Modeling with Prof Luke Miratrix- Used hierarchical linear models to investigate parent stress & early math using ECLS-K 2011 in R
* Structural Equation Modeling with Prof Dana McCoy- Used EFA/CFA & mediation to investigate parent activities & child outcomes using Stata

Other coursework:
* Analytic Frameworks for Policy - HKS class with Prof Richard Zeckhauser
* Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Learning with Prof Monica Higgins
* Child Rearing, Language, and Culture with Prof Meredith Rowe
* Effective Implementation - HKS class with Prof Frank Hartmann

I had a great time at the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children's Spring Conference yesterday.  Glad for the connections I made in the Transforming Program Quality through Intentional Leadership session.  And also glad to have been able to talk with teachers and directors about the importance of math talk in the early childhood classroom.  I've uploaded the handout below.

Also here are links to some of the other resources from the handouts...

Early Math Talk Resources:

Math Begins in Preschool: Talking the Language of Math
http://rec.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/recv2/briefs/pdf/0004.pdf


Let’s Talk About Math Video Series
http://www.zerotothree.org/parenting-resources/early-math-video-series/


Support Math Readiness Through Math Talk
http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/support-math-readiness-through-math-talk


Math Talk with Infants and Toddlers
http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/math-talk-infants-and-toddlers


Supporting Early Math Learning for Infants and Toddlers
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc/docs/nycu-early-math-learning.pdf



General Early Math Resources:

Math at Play Videos
http://mathatplay.org/resources_v.html


Developing Early Math Games Based on Children's Literature
​http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200301/MathGames.pdf


Path to Math: Word Problems for Preschoolers
http://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/math-word.htm


Early Math: The Next Big Thing
http://www.highscope.org/file/EducationalPrograms/EarlyChildhood/EarlyMath.pdf


Algebra in the Early Years? Yes!
http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200301/Algebra.pdf


Logic & Reasoning in Head Start Learning
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/hs/sr/approach/cdelf/l_reason.html


Preschool Math Ideas
http://www.parentingscience.com/preschool-math-lessons.html

While speaking at the NAEYC Annual Conference this past week, I was interviewed by Ready Rosie about the importance of early math talk.  Ready Rosie creates videos for parents that show fun ways to interact with their young children - and I'm happy to see that Ready Rosie is incorporating early math interactions as well as early language and literacy interactions into their apps.    http://readyrosie.com/

Just led a packed workshop with over 120 people at the National Association for the Education of Young Children's 2015 Annual Conference in Florida.  When early childhood teachers can see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians, they are able to help their students see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians.

Here are the handouts as well as the slides that so many participants were trying to take quick phone photos of...

Just led a wonderful workshop at the California Association for the Education of Young Children's 2015 Annual Conference in Sacramento.  When early childhood teachers can see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians, they are able to help their students see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians.

Here are the handouts as well as some photos of the exercises we did...

I gave another workshop today for the Region IX Head Start on Creating Early Math Games that Work!  Was so much fun to play games with all of the teachers, go over the research, and then have everyone create their own games!  :-)

Here are the slides, as promised...

I presented today to 100+ preschool teachers at the Region IX Head Start Early Childhood STEM Institute.  Thanks to everyone who came to the workshop!  Hope you learned lots, and had some fun with math along the way!

Here are the slides, as promised.... 

And here's the Tiny Candy Store problem, as well as some of the other problem solving exercises that we did, and some that we didn't get a chance to explore...

And last, but not least, some of the work that all of you participants did as part of the workshop...