You may be seeing more of volunteer Barbara Mayer, beyond her typical Monday night tutoring; We’re thrilled to announce Barb as our Math Specialist to better support our students and tutors.
Barb, whose voice gets increasingly animated the moment she begins talking about math, has a background as an elementary educator. “I love teaching everything, but math is something that I really feel I have a special interest in.”
Later in her career at River Forest District 90, she explained that teachers “were given some incredible professional development that completely changed how I teach math.” She used this style of teaching math—hands-on visual strategies and a more natural progression through the sequential development of math concepts—until she retired in 2021. Barb says she had always been a fan of Learning Edge but didn’t have the bandwidth to get involved while she was still teaching, “so when I retired, volunteering with Learning Edge was the first thing I did!” Of course she brought her math methodology and enthusiasm with her.
After talking with Executive Director Kara Kalnitz about math in passing and providing a few seminars to tutors about math instruction, it was clear Barb’s talents could be even more effective with a targeted approach. In her new role, Barb started our 2024-25 school year by providing all first- through third-graders with a custom math assessment—a math interview, if you will, as it’s administered with a low-pressure conversation between Barb and each student. For these and any other students who were identified as wanting math support, the assessment results helped Barb give the tutors concrete ways to support each of their students, enrich the content they’re providing, and help close any gaps in student understandings.
Barb remarked, “it is really exciting to share tools with tutors so they can show their students what is happening conceptually. The depth of thinking becomes very evident when the methodology is applied.”
Barb’s hope is to be able to help all Learning Edge students feel confident in math—and to enjoy it! We’re grateful to have Barbara on the team, sharing her math knowledge and joy.