Author: Wendy Ward Hoffer - PEBC

PEBC BLOG

Wendy Ward Hoffer

Supporting Math Equity in Denver Public Schools

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / March 11, 2024

“Numeracy is a civil right. Agree?” PEBC facilitator Jailyn Jenkins points to one side of the open auditorium, “or disagree?” She points to the other. More than fifty teachers, instructional coaches, school administrators and district personnel of diverse backgrounds shift towards the “agree” wall with various degrees of certainty. “Turn […]

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Overview of the PEBC Teaching Framework

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / September 27, 2023

PEBC’s Teaching Framework represents over three decades of research and practice in classrooms across the country in pursuit of teaching each and every student for agency and understanding. Reflective, humble, and striving teachers have led the way in pioneering the instructional approaches described here. It’s not magic, and it’s not […]

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New legislation to boost math achievement and support for Colorado students

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / March 24, 2023

Colorado students who have been struggling with math the past few years may see some additional support in future years, thanks to recently introduced legislation: HB23-1231 – Math in Pre-Kindergarten Through Twelfth Grade. The bipartisan legislation seeks to reverse a trend in declining math scores since 2020, and is designed […]

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Assessment: Rubrics and Trackers

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 25, 2022

Written trackers can be useful in communicating success criteria to students as well as to invite learners to be agents in their own progress monitoring; they might be used for specific tasks or for unit- or yearlong targets. The table below is an example of a self-assessment, self-report tool. Elementary […]

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Assessment: Additive Rubrics

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 19, 2022

An additive rubric is a tool for task design that scaffolds students’ success. Beginning in the first column, we can describe what we expect all students to do to get started, then build with more detail, rigor and complexity towards the right hand side of the page. In this way, […]

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Learning through Discourse

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 19, 2022

I met a special education teacher who shared a story about a boy with autism who had not spoken a word all year. Then one day she gave the group a uniquely challenging math problem. This boy figured it out before all his peers; everyone saw his solution and believed […]

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Teacher Working with Student

Thinking Strategies: Readers’ Workshop

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 19, 2022

Into the Classroom: Mrs. Blake’s Fifth Grade Readers’ Workshop Mrs. Blake’s students have been fifth graders for seven days. This time of year is all about growing independence and learning the rituals and routines of readers’ workshop. But Mrs. Blake’s fifth graders are also knee-deep into an inquiry of how […]

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Students working together

Math Workshop

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 19, 2022

“When I switched to workshop model instruction, my students’ math achievement leapt up by 50 percent in a matter of months. I am not kidding. The principal was in my room asking, ‘What is it you are doing in here?’ And I told her, ‘I read this book, and now […]

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Community in the Classroom

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 19, 2022

Trust, shared purpose, interdependence, mutual support, and safety in taking risks are some of the features of an effective community. Your own community might be your neighborhood, your faith group, your colleagues, or your extended family. For students, their learning community, the space in which and the people with whom […]

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What: Plan for Agency and Understanding 

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / July 19, 2022

Believe in the children, fight foolishness, and learn who our children are and the legacies they bring, education expert Lisa Delpit (2013) implores us in “Multiplication Is for White People.” The foolishness she is referring to is wasting teachers’ time keeping track of non-instructional tasks in regimented, teacher-proof curricula. As […]

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Wendy Ward Hoffer

An Overview of Phenomenal Teaching 

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / June 10, 2022

What does it look like to build students’ agency and understanding amidst shifting standards, changing assessments, waves of mandated curricula, and evolving educational policies? If, against that backdrop, we believe in fostering the unique promise inherent in each child, how might our classrooms look and sound? If we are devoted […]

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Introduction to Phenomenal Teaching

By Wendy Ward Hoffer / April 19, 2022

This blog post is part of a series excerpted from the 2020 PEBC publication Phenomenal Teaching. The book is available through the publisher, Heinemann, as well as on Amazon. “If we create a culture where every teacher believes they need to improve not because they aren’t good enough but because […]

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