Fran Huntoon is a former teacher at The Schoolhouse, who now is in instructor in the University of Vermont’s Vermont Math 
Initiative (VMI). VMI is a comprehensive, statewide, mathematics professional development program for elementary and middle school teachers.
Since September 2010, Fran has been working with the faculty at The Schoolhouse, meeting about once a month and emphasizing professional development, classroom support and assessment.
Using both in-service time and regularly scheduled faculty meetings, Fran leads Mark, Joni and Nari in discussions and explorations of ways to improve their instruction as well as their own content knowledge.
“During the mornings of my visits, I spend time in each classroom observing a math lesson,” explains Fran. After the lesson I meet with the teacher I observed. During this time we talk about the mathematics of the lesson.”
Fran asks a lot of questions to guide the teacher to reflect on his or her teaching and content including:
- Did the students understand?
- What was the previous lesson?
- What is the next lesson?
- What are some questions that you could ask to probe at student understanding?
- How do you know what your students truly understand?
“When we meet, Joni, Mark and Nari have the opportunity to ask about specific students and discuss ways to tailor their instruction,” she says. “This year, our work has focused on curriculum and instructional strategies. We have started looking at the Common Core State Standards and some of the research behind their development. “
Working with Fran is an incredible opportunity to reflect upon and improve The Schoolhouse’s math instruction. We feel very lucky!