Museum and Gallery Education Archives - My Learning Springboard

Hannah Sheldon-Dean

Hannah Sheldon-Dean graduated with honors from Brown University, where she earned a B.A. in Literary Arts and Education Studies. Hannah’s own educational background is unusually eclectic; after five years of public school in small-town Vermont, she was homeschooled between the ages of ten and fifteen. That experience—which included copious amounts of reading and writing—gave her invaluable insight into how students can take initiative and responsibility in their own educations, and she carried those lessons with her to her secondary school career at Berkshire School.

Writing has always been a cornerstone of Hannah’s holistic, student-driven approach to education. She is an experienced freelance writer who focuses on books for children and young adults, including several publications with Penguin Young Readers. A recent alum of the Sackett Street Writers Workshop, Hannah writes both fiction and essays and is passionate about encouraging students to do the same. Hannah has also worked extensively in coordinating literary programming for students, most recently as the School Partnerships Manager at Greenlight Bookstore.

Hannah is always interested in learning more about nontraditional education and the interaction between students’ experiences inside and outside of school. To further explore that same comprehensive perspective, Hannah entered a Master’s program in Social Work at New York University, which she completed in May 2015. While at NYU, Hannah gained expertise in the environmental and socioemotional aspects of children’s success, in large part through work as a clinician in the mental health clinic at Children of Promise, NYC. She is an experienced practitioner of cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness interventions and is happy to offer students and families the chance to integrate aspects of those practices into their academic pursuits.

Both during and after college, Hannah gained extensive teaching experience, from teaching poetry to eighth graders at a Rhode Island charter school to working on essay writing with other undergraduates as a Brown University Writing Fellow. Hannah always begins work with a new writer by identifying his or her existing skills, knowledge, and interests, and she finds that working from those strengths is the best foundation on which to build further expertise. Hannah has also worked with children in less formal contexts, most notably as a counselor and activity director at Camp Wohelo and as a babysitter and private tutor.

In her spare time, Hannah can be found baking bread, spending lots of time outside, and singing beautiful choral music with Khorikos, a classical vocal ensemble.

Brad Hoffman

Brad Hoffman, CEO and Founder of My Learning Springboard, has always loved working with students and their families. He believes in the power of collaboration and advocates for a holistic, 360-degree view of education.

Professional Associations

Brad Hoffman is a Board Certified Educational Planner (AICEP) and Professional Member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) with specialty designations in mainstream day and boarding schools, specialized schools for students with learning disabilities, and therapeutic placements, including therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, and wilderness programs. He is also a member of The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), the Small Boarding School Association (SBSA), The Enrollment Management Association (formerly SSATB), the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP), the Association of Educational Therapists (AET), the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA), and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

Brad Hoffman’s Teaching Background

Over the past 20 years, Brad Hoffman has worked with students from pre-kindergarten through Fortune 500 executives as a classroom teacher, tutor, curriculum writer, human resources talent development specialist, and educational consultant. Brad graduated magna cum laude from Penn State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and then received a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction at Hood College in Maryland graduating with honors. He is also an Elementary Math and Science Specialist and holds an Advanced Professional Teaching Certificate from the state of Maryland. Brad is trained in PAF Reading Intervention, an Orton-Gillingham based approach, Sounds In Motion, Read Naturally, Singapore Math, Everyday Math, and a variety of other programs and curriculum standards. In 2014, Brad was honored with the prestigious Penn State Alumni Achievement Award in honor of his significant contributions to the field of education.

During his undergraduate career, Brad Hoffman was an Assistant Teacher at Penn State’s Bennett Family Center (formerly called the Penn State Child Care Center) during all four years of college. He worked with children ages birth through 5 and participated in the center’s accreditation process with NAEYC. During his senior year of college, Brad was a Teacher Intern in England while studying at University of Chichester. There he taught a Year 2 class (ages 6/7) at an Infant School in all areas of the curriculum, including literacy, numeracy, technology, science, religion, history, PE, and Art. Upon graduation, Brad accepted a full-time lead teaching position in Frederick County, Maryland in a fully inclusive public school setting located in a rural part of the county. Children with both learning differences and physical disabilities were fully integrated in the regular classroom. One-third of Brad’s students had dyslexia and received specialized intervention, and two of his students were children with autism.

“While it was really challenging, I learned so much about how to differentiate classroom instruction for all types of learners, which is critical for any productive learning to occur.”

Brad played an integral part in facilitating his students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEP), a documented plan to help meet the unique needs of an individual learner with a learning disability. This assistance often required a team of related services experts to meet, ranging from the speech language specialist and school psychologist, to the parents, principal, and teacher(s). Working collaboratively always led to increased professionalism and greater student success.

In 2001, Brad relocated to Bethesda, Maryland to pursue a teaching position with Montgomery County Public Schools, one of the leading public school systems in the United States. He taught first and fourth grades at Somerset Elementary School in Chevy Chase, Maryland for five years, differentiating instruction for students at, below, or above grade level in addition to working with students identified as gifted and talented. Somerset is an internationally diverse community and one of the highest ranked elementary schools in Maryland; it is also a model Inclusion Program school. During this time, Brad earned his Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and partnered with the Somerset Educational Foundation, school faculty, and the school counselor to develop K-5 Service Learning curricula. Brad presented his curriculum work at both the county and state departments of education and was named a Maryland Service-Learning Fellow.

Brad Hoffman’s Corporate Background

In 2006, Brad Hoffman moved to New York City to start his second career in Human Resources with Time Inc., a Fortune 100 Media Company. As an educator, Brad brought a unique perspective to Corporate America and focused on Talent Development. He worked with clients across locations, divisions, and countries – over 5,000 employees – to design and implement customized learning solutions and strategic recruiting efforts to attract, develop, and retain talented employees. Brad also designed and managed summer internship programs for college and MBA students interested in media, general management, finance, and marketing career paths. These programs were designed as 10-week projects so that management could assess intern performance on authentic, thoughtful, and substantive tasks, while interns were also able to assess the company as a good fit for starting their careers.

In 2009, Brad and his wife, Faya Hoffman, launched My Learning Springboard to help families construct and manage private teams of experts focused on educational consultation, which includes admissions consulting, academic support, enrichment teaching, strategic test preparation, professional development, teacher mentorship, and curriculum development. In 2011, Brad left Corporate America to further expand My Learning Springboard in New York City and Washington, D.C. as well as Palm Beach County, Florida.

Brad Hoffman’s LinkedIn profile

Brad Hoffman

My Learning Springboard, Inc.

CEO and Educational Consultant

A multidisciplinary educational consulting firm

Tribeca

New York,NY

10013

brad@mylearningspringboard.com

Phone: +1 (646) 478-8692

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Jeremy Cohan

Jeremy Cohan is excited about, practiced in, and creative with learning. Knowing that no two persons are quite alike—and that learning can be the best of life—he tries to bring thinking alive with his students. He himself is a lifelong learner: he has degrees in Philosophy and Music from the University of Chicago and Middle-Childhood Education from Pace University/Teach for America, and is writing his dissertation in Sociology at NYU.

Jeremy was born to two teacher-parents and fell for school early and hard. He’s been at it ever since. In college, he tutored small groups of accelerated students at a Jewish Day School in math and in modern interpretations of religious texts. He also co-directed the school musical, bringing to his teaching the skills he developed as he wrote, directed and acted in his college theater troupe.

Upon finishing college, he came to New York to begin teaching middle school in the South Bronx with Teach for America. His first year, he taught English, Math, and Science to a small class of students with special needs; his second year he taught English as a second language through drama. This was a challenging environment: he learned to draw connections between students and the material, make his explanations crystal clear, and offer loads of creative ways in. He published an article on drama and teaching in the summer 2008 newsletter of the Curriculum Network of the National Association for Gifted Children. He also ran an after school drama club, wherein he and students wrote and performed their own original musical. The principal shared that it was the most remarkable thing he’d seen the school accomplish.

After beginning his PhD study, Jeremy began to teach undergraduates and masters students in seminars. He moderated free ranging discussions touching on philosophy, history, and sociology. His undergraduates frequently found what they expected to be a sleepy obligation transformed into, as one student put it, “a stimulating and intriguing space that I looked forward to every week.” His first year he also tutored several of his former pupils in preparation for the New York City specialized high school exam (SHSAT). When he went to Chicago to conduct his dissertation research, he got back into private tutoring, and remembered how much he enjoyed working one-on-one with students. He tutored two adolescents in a literature course he designed, “Strange Journeys.” The mother of one of these students warned Jeremy that her son had never met a literature class he liked—yet she relayed some weeks thereafter that his literature hour was by far his favorite class.

Jeremy, then, is eminently qualified and experienced in tutoring subjects as diverse as literature, writing, mathematics, theater, music, philosophy, history, sociology and standardized test preparation. Most importantly, he has a love for teaching, and for seeing how creative and rigorous pedagogy can rocket a student forward in his/her development.

In his spare time Jeremy still performs—he recently starred in a production of Stoppard’s Arcadia, and he sings with a new music choral ensemble, Cantori NY. He’s always reading something and strives to be politically engaged.

Adi Segal

Adi Segal is a healthcare entrepreneur with a passion for teaching. He comes to My Learning Springboard with over a decade of experience in both formal and informal settings, including summer camps, after school programs, and private tutoring with individual students. Adi focuses on Language Arts, Social Studies, Judaics (text, history, and culture), Hebrew Language, and Bar/Bat Mitzvah preparation. He also enjoys working with students with special needs and previously taught at a specialized independent school in Manhattan for students with language based learning disabilities.

Adi believes in meeting the specific needs of every student by finding their best methods of collaborative learning. He loves to bring a fully immersive experience through active conversation, demonstrations, and sometimes even field trips. As an active and experiential learner himself, Adi understands that often the best learning happens outside the classroom.

Adi holds degrees from Columbia University and The Jewish Theological Seminary. He has academic interests in urban planning and sustainable development. Professionally, Adi works on building new solutions to help improve healthcare in the U.S. In his downtime, Adi enjoys outdoor adventure, spending time with family and friends, and volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician.

Alex Jacobs

Alex Jacobs is a private tutor who specializes in history, elementary math and language arts.

Alex was born and raised in Manhattan where he attended the Horace Mann School from Kindergarten through twelfth grade. While in High School, he tutored elementary school students both privately and through school-run programs. His experience at a rigorous New York preparatory school has given him insight into the unique challenges and pressures that students in that world face.

Alex then attended Oberlin College, where he earned his B.A. in Sociology. During college, he continued to educate elementary and middle school students, first as an assistant teacher at The Grace Church School’s summer program and later as a math and literacy tutor at Goddard Riverside Community’s Star Learning Center.

Alex is now a professional musician and music writer. His music has been covered by SPIN and Interview Magazine and his writing has been featured in the Huffington Post. He also teaches established producers and composers how to use the latest audio production software and gives lessons in percussion and digital synthesis to musicians of all ages. Most recently, Alex has led workshops for 3rd – 7th grade students in environmental education, music and nutrition for Arts in Parts, a nonprofit after-school and summer program in Far Rockaway.

Whether helping young readers navigate their first novel or coaching graduate school hopefuls through their applications and admissions tests, Alex’s spirited demeanor makes seemingly mundane work fun and fulfilling for learners at every level. In his 13 years as a tutor and educator, Alex has helped students excel in a broad range of subjects, including literacy, writing, mathematics, geography, history and the study of religion.

When he is not teaching or tutoring, Alex can be found collecting antique maps, building musical instruments or conducting ad hoc trivia competitions among friends.

Jeremy Cohan

Adi Segal

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