Valerie Henry

Lecturer
School of Education

October 1, 2012

SoE Mathematics Educator Works with National U Teach Program, MET Extension Video Library of Practice

“As the majority of schools across the United States begin transitioning to Common Core State Standards in both mathematics and English-Language Arts, we are beginning to realize the benefits of this focus on common standards. Many collaborative projects are underway to provide support for teachers as they begin to transition to these 21st century standards.”

At the end of summer, Dr. Valerie Henry, Lecturer in the School of Education, co-facilitated a symposium focused on one of these projects — the MET Extension Video Library of Practice. Dr. Henry and Dr. Brad Hughes (SoE affiliated faculty, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) introduced 15 math and science pre-service faculty from campuses across the country to this ambitious project that is in the process of collecting videos of 15,000 mathematics and English-language arts lessons for grades 4 through 9.

“The challenge for this group of UTeach faculty members was to think through the ways they could assist with the development of the video library while at the same time providing learning opportunities for their pre-service students.”

This fall, the members of this symposium are conducting a pilot project with their pre-service teachers to begin indexing the math videos from this library, using a tagging scheme developed by the University of Michigan Teaching Works project.

Dr. Henry has been working with the national UTeach program for the past five years as UC Irvine participated as one of the original replication sites for this STEM initiative that allows undergraduates to complete both their math/science degrees and their teaching credential requirements in four years. Building on courses already offered at UCI as part of the CalTeach project, UC Irvine now has pathways for math and science students to gain extensive experience in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms at the same time that they are deepening their math and science knowledge.

For the past two years Dr. Henry has been teaching one of the CalTeach classes, Classroom Interactions, that focuses on classroom discourse, formative assessment, development of academic language, and begins the discussion of equity issues in math and science classrooms.  Fall Quarter 2012 Dr. Henry is teaching another CalTeach class: Complex Pedagogical Design.  As she explains,

This course focuses on ways to provide students with cognitively demanding math and science learning experiences, and will be a perfect vehicle over the next several years to help UCI students develop leadership skills related to the Common Core Math Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Now beginning her 11th year as a math education lecturer at UC Irvine, Dr. Henry also teaches courses in the School of Education minor program, the post-baccalaureate credential program for multiple subject candidates, and the Master of Arts in Teaching program.

Dr. Valerie Henry received her B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California, Davis. Upon receiving California Teaching Credentials for both Multiple Subjects and Secondary Mathematics from UC Irvine, she spent 16 years teaching at the middle school level and at Concordia University and over ten years working with the California Math Project at UC Irvine, the California Math Renaissance Project, PBS Math Online, and Irvine Unified School District math staff development.

During her time in the middle school mathematics classroom, Dr. Henry received numerous awards, including National Board Certification in Early Adolescent Mathematics, California State Finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics & Science Teaching, and Teacher of the Year for Irvine Unified School District. From her experiences as a teacher, mentor teacher, math and technology facilitator, coach, workshop leader, and lecturer, she has developed an intense interest in issues surrounding the educational change process.

I saw how difficult educational change was, particularly in the area of mathematics education. I noticed the role quality textbooks, or the lack thereof, played in the difficulties math reform was experiencing. I came to believe that the effectiveness of staff development and educational reform depends on clear understanding of the interplay between textbooks, students, teachers, and parents. I also came to believe that the quality of research shared with teachers, and the methods used to share research with teachers, may directly impact the success of educational reform efforts.

Dr. Henry’s fascination with the educational change process encouraged her enrollment in the UCI/UCLA Joint Ed.D. in Educational Administration, where she pursued her interests in brain research, research in curriculum and instruction, community outreach, and effective staff development. For her dissertation, Investigating Mathematics Content Standard Quality: A Review of California’s High-Demand First Grade Basic Facts Expectations, she explored how teachers’ beliefs and practices were impacted by California’s new mathematics standards and how this impacted student achievement.

Dr. Henry’s current research interests include early diagnosis and intervention and response to intervention for mathematics, number sense and basic facts fluency, algebra cognition and pedagogy, and the use of video with pre-service teachers.

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