New Perspectives on Learning Leadership

Founder, New Perspectives On Learning

Cathy is Professor Emerita of Education at the City College of New York and was the founder of Mathematics in the City, a national center for professional development located at the college. She has authored over 70 books on mathematics education, including the Young Mathematicians at Work series and the Contexts for Learning Mathematics series. In 2012 she retired from the college and established New Perspectives on Learning in order to devote her full attention to the development of new materials and supporting school change. Over the last several years she has worked to turn CFLM into a full core program with 54 units, an accompanying online professional support system and a formative assessment package for the documentation of learning.

Vice-President of Support, Implementation and Teacher Learning

Ryan brings to the team decades of work as a classroom teacher, Principal, District Math Administrator and a Regional Math Specialist. He frequently presents at national conferences such as NCTM and NCSM, and has a long history of supporting schools in implementing the CFLM units, the P2S2 platform and digital assessment application. Ryan's role is to support schools and districts in implementing our resources from their own starting point and traverse the journey of building communities of young mathematicians at work.

Senior Associate of Professional Development

Janan was previously a senior mathematics staff developer in New York City schools with Mathematics in the City and an adjunct professor at the School of Education at the City College of New York. In the fall of 2019, Janan resigned from CCNY to join Cathy full time at New Perspectives on Learning. Early in her career Janan was a microelectronics process developer for MIT Lincoln Laboratories, a mathematics and science teacher at the Murdoch Middle School, and an instructional coach in mathematics for Boston Public Schools.

There she led various professional development workshops for teachers, principals and after-care providers with a particular interest in supporting struggling and special needs students and was also involved in data analysis and assessment development for the mathematics department. Janan ​is the co-author of the CFLM kindergarten unit Rhoda Red and Loretta Leghorn and she collaborated with Cathy on the NCTM publication, Models of Intervention: Re-Weaving the Tapestry.

Curriculum Developer & Author

Sylvia teaches middle school math and science at Greenspring Montessori outside Baltimore, MD. She is the developer and author, together with Cathy Fosnot, of several new CFLM units, among them:

• Tabletops, Floors, and Fields: Area, Perimeter, and Partitioning
• Stairsteps and Scales: Multiplication and Division of Decimals
• The Architects' Project: Area, Volume, and Nets
• Surveyors and Subways: the Cartesian Coordinate System.

In her classroom, Sylvia seeks to empower her students to use their mathematical understanding to explore and shape the world; she and her students have presented together on how classroom data investigations can launch advocacy for social justice. They have also co-created a body of conjecture and proof work that Sylvia has shared nationally.

In addition to teaching, Sylvia heads Cathy's writing team and enjoys exploring math at home with her young children.

Curriculum Developer, Author, Professional Development Specialist

Sharon’s teaching career includes more than 33 years at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia. A former scientist, her teaching has spanned grades K-12, including at the high school level for 20 years, serving as head of middle and upper school math departments, and culminating as the lower school math coordinator.

Sharon is a co-author of the 4th grade place value unit, Puzzle Packing Company, and is featured in several units on the New Perspectives online platform.

In addition to the joy of helping to inspire in students a lasting understanding of how math lives throughout their lives, Sharon finds equally rewarding the opportunities to collaborate and support teachers in deepening their math content knowledge and approach to teaching.

Assessment Writer, Professional Development Specialist

Emily Stewart is currently a math specialist for an independent school in Washington DC that serves children ages 3 through 6th grade. She has also taught 4th grade and Kindergarten and has worked as a TA for Urban Teachers (a graduate teacher education program through Johns Hopkins), assisting with math methods courses.

Her particular interests include observing young children as they mathematize their world and helping to broaden their understanding of what mathematics is and what mathematicians do. She originally studied with Bill Jacob at UCSB in 2007 and now works with New Perspectives on Learning as a consultant. She earned a Masters in Teaching Mathematics K-8 from Mt. Holyoke College in 2021.

Author, Professional Development

Kate Philpott has taught in San Francisco Independent schools for over 30 years as both a classroom teacher and as a math specialist, coaching teachers. In addition, she is a lead teacher with the Monterey Mathematics Project, a non-profit providing professional development to public school teachers.

Kate began attending Cathy’s workshops in 2010 and has made the CFLM units an integral part of her school’s math curriculum. Kate is interested in introducing young mathematicians to the beauty of math and providing opportunities to engage students in work that is relevant and respectfully reflects the world of the mathematician.

Professional Development Specialist

Jennifer Jacobson is an Instructional Numeracy Coach in Waterford, CT where she works as the district’s Kindergarten through Second grade coach between three elementary schools.

Jennifer has been utilizing Contexts for Learning Mathematics (CFLM) since 2016 and has co-led a number of CFLM units with Cathy Fosnot. Her passion is supporting teachers to focus on developing contexts while letting students have that "light bulb" moment that not only teaches their classmates, but also their teacher.

Prior to becoming a coach, she taught Fourth grade and Kindergarten for fifteen years. She resides in Guilford, CT, with her husband and four children.

Curriculum Developer, Author, Professional Development Specialist

Katie is a second grade teacher at Germantown Friends School and has taught in public, charter, and independent schools in Philadelphia over the past 12 years. 

She is a featured teacher on the New Perspectives Online platform and was a demonstration teacher for CFLM’s Mathematicians in Residence program.  She loves exploring new professional learning in collaboration with colleagues. 

Katie has a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and a M.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.  She enjoys hiking with her dog and kindergartner in her free time.

Consultant

Sarah Ryan is an education consultant and adjunct professor at the University of Delaware.  She has a BA from Williams College and a MS in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Bank Street College.  Sarah has been an elementary school teacher, professional developer, and teacher educator for over 20 years. 

Sarah began working with Cathy and Maarten in 1995 as a teacher in the Math in the City project, where she was introduced to the landscape of learning, number strings, and how to use realistic contexts to support children’s mathematical development.  Sarah has been using what she learned in that project in her work with children and teachers ever since.  

Sarah is fascinated with children’s mathematical thinking and believes that all children are capable of and deserve to develop a rich conceptual understanding of mathematics.