LTEC Blog

 

LTEC Staff Profile: Cheryl Moran

February 20, 2017

Name: Cheryl Moran

LTEC Role: Research Associate

Professional Background: I began my career as an elementary school teacher and taught for 8 years. I taught in both public and private schools. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology from University of Illinois at Chicago and a master’s degree in teaching from National Louis University. I am endorsed to teach English as a second language. While teaching, I was a pilot teacher for Everyday Mathematics, 1st edition. I provided weekly feedback about lessons to the author team. I became intrigued with the Everyday Mathematics curriculum and wanted to share my experiences with other teachers so I independently began providing professional development to new and experienced Everyday Mathematics teachers. In 2003, I joined the UChicago STEM education (formerly CEMSE) team and have taken on a professional developer and curriculum writer role. Currently, in addition to this LTEC project, I am part of a researcher-practitioner partnership team exploring how to make high school computer science instruction and materials more accessible for students with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.

Why is LTEC my jam? In the Spring of 2015, I created my first web page using html and became interested in programming and how the problem solving involved in computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) is related to mathematics. It has become a priority of mine to expose elementary students to the problem solving within CS and CT to extend and build upon their problem solving experiences in mathematics and real life. Currently, elementary teachers are charged to teach a wide variety of subjects with little room to take on another subject. Integrating CS, CT, and mathematics is a sensible way to inject life-long problem solving skills into the elementary classroom. In this LTEC project, examining the literature to pull out learning goals to assist in creating elementary grade-specific or grade-band learning trajectories, is a necessary step towards this priority.

My work: As a senior curriculum developer, I was the lead author and team leader for Grade 2 Everyday Mathematics, 4th edition (print and digital versions); Grade 2 Everyday Mathematics, Common Core State Standards edition; Grade 2 Everyday Mathematics, 3rd edition; and co-author of Everyday Mathematics My Reference Book. I have developed and implemented workshops for in-service teachers, teacher leaders, and administrators at the local, national, and international levels. I coordinated in-school support for the Chicago Public Schools Restructuring Schools Support Project and supported mathematics instruction at several Chicago Public schools. I am a senior leader of the Everyday Mathematics Virtual Learning Community (VLC), an online community for teachers to view and share resources that support mathematics teaching, communicate with other teachers about pedagogy, and take time to reflect on their practice.

What I do with my spare time: In addition to mothering my four children, I enjoy walking my two dogs in the woods, cycling, running, and doing other exercise. I take one online computer science or web design class per year.

Fun facts:

  • I rescued sea turtles in Cozumel.
  • I play, or attempt to play, in the annual family Thanksgiving football game.
  • I play in the annual Moran Family Fantasy Football league and have made it to the Super Bowl twice (but never won :-( ).
  • I play Scrabble and Yahtzee with Friends on my iPhone
  • I love to work on puzzles.

Connect with me: