Ann Elizabeth Fennema ( Hammer; April 8, 1928 – December 20, 2021) was an American educator specializing in the teaching of mathematics.

Early life and education

Fennema was born in

El Dorado, Kansas El Dorado ( ) is city and county seat of Butler County, Kansas, United States. It is situated along the Walnut River in the central part of Butler County and located in south-central Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city ...

, on April 8, 1928, and attended the local Methodist college for two years, before transferring to

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

where she majored in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

. She received her master's degree in education from the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

in 1952. In 1962 Kathryn Clarenbach (a founder of

NOW Now most commonly refers to the present time. Now, NOW, or The Now may also refer to: Organizations * Natal Organisation of Women, a South African women's organization * National Organization for Women, an American feminist organization * Now ...

) sent out a questionnaire inquiring of unemployed or underemployed wives of university professors who were interested in a career. As a result of this process Fennema was asked to be a supervisor of

student teacher A student teacher or prac teacher (''practice teacher'') is a college, university or graduate student who is teaching under the supervision of a certified teacher in order to qualify for a degree in education. The term is also often used intercha ...

s. In this position she worked for Vere DeVault who encouraged her to pursue a doctorate in education and served as her dissertation adviser. She began in 1962 and received the degree in 1969 in curriculum and instruction in mathematics education. In 1962 "

new math New Mathematics or New Math was a dramatic but temporary change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries and elsewhere, during the 1950s1970s. Curriculum topics and teaching pract ...

" was in vogue and many educators were thinking deeply about how to teach mathematical understanding to students. Fennema recognized the importance of a good foundation in mathematics was critical for all students leading to her interest in math education.

Career

After finishing her PhD she was hired as a half time, non-

tenure Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

d track, position. In 1970 the University created part-time tenured-track positions and Fennema obtained one of the positions. Fennema and Julia Sherman applied for a grant from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

(NSF)

research grant A grant is a fund given by an end entity grant – often a public body, charitable foundation, or a specialised grant-making institution – to an individual or another entity (usually, a non-profit organisation, sometimes a business or a loc ...

to examine factors in mathematics classroom that might be associated with

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

, resulting in the " Fennema-Sherman studies". Fennema and her associates have spent over 25 years researching interactions of girls and young women in mathematics classrooms. One outgrowth of this was a questionnaire, the " Fennema-Sherman Scales" to enable researchers to gather data on the attitudes of young women towards mathematics, and the results from different sites compared. She and her colleagues have also developed an innovative method of teaching mathematics called

Cognitively Guided Instruction Cognitively Guided Instruction is "a professional development program based on an integrated program of research on (a) the development of students' mathematical thinking; (b) instruction that influences that development; (c) teachers' knowledge a ...

. The Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) philosophy is detailed in
Children's Mathematics
' which she co-authored with Thomas Carpenter, Megan Loef Franke, Linda Levi, and Susan Empson. She retired from the University of Wisconsin at the end of the 1995–1996 academic year.

Awards

Fennema received the first ''Annual Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research on Women and Education'' from the

American Educational Research Association The American Educational Research Association (AERA, pronounced "A-E-R-A") is a professional organization representing education researchers in the United States and around the world. AERA's mission is to advance knowledge about education and p ...

( Special Interest Group for Research on Women in Education) in 1985. She received the Dora Helen Skypek Award from the Association for Women and Mathematics Education in 1986. She received a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Mount Mary College in 1994. She received the 2021

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds an ...

(NCTM) Lifetime Achievement Award.

Personal life and death

Fennema married Owen Fennema in 1948. She died on December 20, 2021.

References

Sources

*''Notable Women in Mathematics, a Biographical Dictionary'', edited by Charlene Morrow and Teri Perl, Greenwood Press, 1998. pp 51–56 {{DEFAULTSORT:Fennema, Elizabeth 1928 births 2021 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Kansas State University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education alumni People from Winfield, Kansas Academics from Kansas American women academics