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Ms. Olmstead brings her extensive ESL and instructional coaching experience to Pear School Solutions. In addition to her role as a Pear Instructional Math Coach, she serves as an Assistant Professor at Columbia College where she teaches a variety of courses in the education program including the Methods of Teaching Math, Science, and Technology in both Pre-Primary and Primary classrooms. She is dedicated to working with teachers on embracing the latest research-based instructional practices that support students’ achievement in mathematics.

 

Serving as a field supervisor, mentor, and instructional coach, Ms. Olmstead helps pre-service teachers adopt the most effective mathematics instructional practices designed to increase student understanding and achievement. Prior to her work at Columbia College, she taught for 23 years at the pre-primary and primary levels in Chicago Public Schools where she was selected to mentor new teachers and also hosted student teachers. She served as a mentor to new teachers through the Golden Teachers Program, Peer To Peer mentoring program, and as a MINT mentor. Ms. Olmstead’s success as an educator resulted in tripling the percentage of students scoring at or above grade level in mathematics.

 

Ms. Olmstead continues her passion for ensuring instructional success by serving as an edTPA assessment scorer for ECE submissions. Because of her dedication to teacher preparation, she is relied upon to analyze edTPA test submissions. This assessment is a performance-based, subject-specific assessment and support system used by teacher preparation programs and state licensing agencies throughout the United States to emphasize, measure and support the skills and knowledge that all teachers need from Day 1 in the classroom. Her work helps determine whether aspiring teachers demonstrate the readiness to design and implement lesson plans that support students' strengths and needs while engaging students in ambitious learning, and to analyze student progress, adjusting their instruction to become more effective.

 

Ms. Olmstead shares her extensive educational knowledge and experience by presenting at CAEYC and GoAEYC conferences. She has attended and facilitated workshops at the Walloon Institute in Michigan and has been trained by the Illinois State Board of Education on Building Better Teams. Ms. Olmstead has also worked to identify funding sources for education by co-writing a grant for improving academic achievement through the arts.

 

In addition to her love of education, Ms. Olmstead enjoys being outside, spending time with her children, getting lost in a good book, traveling, and doing yoga and tai chi.