Sharon Hessney
Department of Energy
Capitol Hill, Office of Senator Al Franken (D-MN)
Massachusetts, High School Math
Sharon Hessney is a 17-year, veteran math teacher who has taught most K-12 grades. For the past four years, she has taught geometry, discrete math, and statistics at Boston’s John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science. Hessney is the O’Bryant Origami Club advisor which participates in MIT’s OrigaMIT club. Previously, she taught in Minneapolis and Waltham and Milton in Massachusetts.
Hessney has a B.A. from Yale in Economics, a M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton in Finance, and a M.Ed. from Harvard in Mathematics Education. She achieved National Board Certification in mathematics in 2002 and was named the Massachusetts Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics in 2009.
Ms. Hessney is a constructivist math educator who has implemented the National Science Foundation-funded, Investigations (K–5) and the Interactive Math Program (9–12) in her classroom. Her approach includes focusing on student inquiry and critical thinking with students working in cooperative groups. The Mass Math + Science Initiative recognized Hessney for helping students who are not designated as having AP potential by the College Board to earn qualifying scores. Sharon believes a mandatory, summer bridge to statistics program and a regular infusion of current data and research into class discussions from the media and guest speakers were key to her students’ success. She also arranged for her students to put their knowledge into practice by providing pro bono statistical analysis for the Boston Transit Police Authority on truancy data and the Massachusetts General Hospital on middle school health data. The summer bridge program, for which Hessney obtained private funding, has been adopted by the Boston Public Schools and her efforts were featured in the June 2011, NPR interview Making an A+ Teacher.
Sharon has coached dozens of teams in the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications’ High School Mathematical Competition in Modeling and has raised over $60,000 for girls to attend Mount Holyoke’s SummerMath and Boston University’s Summer Pathways programs. Ms. Hessney is an active member of the Boston Chapter of the American Statistical Association; she led their efforts to lobby for the Statistical Literacy Act among the Massachusetts Congressional delegation and ASA’s day-long careers in statistics workshop for high school students.
Shelly Hessney is serving her fellowship on Capitol Hill as an education policy fellow in Minnesota Senator Al Franken’s (D-MN) office.