Assistant Director of School Support Services
Donna Johnson works with the Early Math Collaborative to provide support for coaches who help teachers enhance their math content knowledge and reflective teaching practice.Though she holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, her passion for teaching and learning led her from engineering into education, where she has been involved in teaching children of all ages in nontraditional settings. She presents workshops that focus on children from birth to age five.
B.A., M.S. in mechanical engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
(2019, March). Play and learn together! Games engage ALL children and families in math thinking. Presentation at the Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.
, Karen Fuson. (2017). Supporting Teachers to Systematically Analyze Students’ Strengths and Struggles and Identify Next Instructional Moves. Presentation at the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics annual conference.
National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics View Link (2013, April). Coaching for understanding. Presentation at the annual meeting of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, Denver, CO.
(2013, April). Let’s get learning! Using adult learning activities to increase teachers’ knowledge of content, development and pedagogy in math and other disciplines. Presentation at the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Denver, CO.
(2013, January). ¿De què tanto estamos hablando? Ideas Importantes en el Area de Medir. Presentation at the annual meeting of the Chicago Metro Association for the Education of Young Children, Chicago, IL.
(2011, October). The key to effective coaching. Presentation for the Head Start Resource Center, Washington, DC.
How is it possible to have too many tamales? Well, Maria finds out in the book Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. In this holiday storybook, what starts out as a fun experience helping mama make tamales becomes a frantic search for mama's wedding ring. But it's in the search that Maria and her cousins are faced…
A Triangle for Adaora by Ifeoma Onyefulu is a delightful book that emphasizes several Big Ideas in geometry, including that comparing attributes of shapes helps define and classify them and that two- and three-dimensional shapes can be used to represent and understand the world around us. Adaora doesn’t want to eat her paw-paw fruit because she…
Teachers who go home from our learning lab with Anno’s Counting Book immediately put it to use to get their students exploring “how many?” After reading Anno’s Counting Book, Nancy Beza at Waters Elementary encouraged her preschoolers to make a list of objects that could be found in a winter scene—snowflakes, trees, etc. Each student…