Elham Kazemi




Elham Kazemi’s first research project allowed her to watch twenty-four teachers teach the same lesson.  It led her to realize what a privilege it was to be in other teachers’ classrooms and reminded her how little teachers have access to one another’s thinking and practice.  It also helped her see how disparate classroom learning experiences were for children.  This experience also sparked her interest in how teachers lead mathematical discussions in classrooms that honor children’s ideas.  Her graduate work culminated with the opportunity to work with Megan Franke and two other doctoral students to facilitate after school workgroup meetings with teams of teachers in one school to study their students’ thinking by examining student work.  Her work with Megan at UCLA was the foundation for everything that followed!

Elham is currently a professor at the University of Washington where she has worked since 1999.  During all this time, she has been lucky to work with hundreds of teachers, instructional coaches, principals, and professional educators to continue to build her understanding of children’s thinking and the way schools are organized to support both teachers and students to learn.  This work has brought her to continually deepen her own understanding of children and their ideas; what it means to transform schools to be places where children are known, where they feel like they belong and where they feel invested; and to disrupt inequities that students experience because of their class, race, and gender.   It’s humbling and invigorating to be a a part of teams of teachers and leaders who care so much to do right by children and their families.  One particular long-term partnership has led to inventing new ways for teachers in schools to learn together and lots of great ideas about leading discussions that Elham and Allison Hintz wrote about in Intentional Talk and are reflected in various ways in Choral Counting & Counting Collections.  

Elham is a first generation immigrant from Iran, moving to the US at the age of 11.  Her teenage daughters know that when they bump into someone their mom is excited to see, it must be a teacher she was lucky to learn from!

Elham Kazemi

 

Titles by Author (shown below):
2 products
Choral Counting & Counting Collections
Choral Counting & Counting Collections
Megan L. Franke, Elham Kazemi, and Angela Chan Turrou
Paperback
$43.34 $32.50 Save $10.84
Intentional Talk
Intentional Talk
Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz
Paperback
$34.00 $25.50 Save $8.50
Megan L. Franke, Elham Kazemi, and Angela Chan Turrou:::100194

Choral Counting & Counting Collections

9781625311092

$43.34 $32.50 Save $10.84
In this influential book from collaborative authors Megan L Franke, Elham Kazemi, and Angela Chan Turrou, Choral Counting & Counting Collections: Transforming the PreK – 5 Math Classroom, explores ways in which two routines -- Choral Counting and Counting Collections -- can transform your elementary math classroom, your students' math understanding, and your partnerships with families. It paints a vision for how deeply and creatively children can engage with ideas of number and operations and mathematical reasoning through counting.

Created with real educators' needs in mind and organized by grade-level band (preschool, K-2, and 3-5), inside this book you'll find:
  • Easy-to-use planning templates to guide teachers in implementing these powerful routines
  • A variety of student recording sheets for Counting Collections that allow teachers to enact different variations of this activity across the grades
  • Guides for selecting Choral Counts that support grade-level standards and mathematical goals
  • Goal charts that provide specific guidance on teacher language and moves
  • Advice on supporting both students' mathematical and social goals through Choral Counting and Counting Collections

The authors have collected the wisdom of math teachers and researchers across the country who explore activities that are both playful and intentional, simple and sophisticated. If you're looking for ways to bring new energy into your math instruction, Choral Counting & Counting Collections: Transforming the PreK - 5 Math Classroom is the perfect book for you and your students. 
Choral Counting & Counting Collections
Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz:::100159

Intentional Talk

9781571109767

$34.00 $25.50 Save $8.50

Mathematical discussions in the classroom are crucial for sharing ideas and developing understanding, but not all are created equal. In Intentional Talk: How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions, authors Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz provide teachers a framework for planning and facilitating math talks that deepen and enrich student learning.

Based on four principles, Intentional Talk will help structure conversations to stay productive and on task:

  • Discussions should achieve a mathematical goal
  • Students need to know what to share and how to share it to meet the goal
  • Teachers need to orient students to ideas and each other so every class member is involved
  • Teachers must communicate all children are sense makers and their ideas are valued

 
Through detailed vignettes, the authors examine student’s roles as both listeners and talkers and offer strategies for improving student participation and learning. The book also includes a collection of planning templates for teachers to apply the right structure to discussions in their own classrooms.

In these conversations students engage with each other, share ideas, and develop critical thinking skills. Intentional Talk provides the perfect bridge between student engagement and conceptual understanding in mathematical discussions.

Intentional Talk