Heidi Sabnani, EdD

Heidi Sabnani, EdD, is an experienced educator with 22 years serving in a variety of educational roles. She is passionate about providing professional growth opportunities for the teachers and administrators that promote curiosity about how we learn math and literacy. She has presented at multiple NCTM national, regional, and virtual conferences, the NCSM annual conference, CMC-South, and the 2nd Annual Building Thinking Classrooms Conference. In 2018, Heidi traveled to mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos to present at a conference organized by Teachers 2 Teachers Global (now MathKind) and the Galapagos Conservancy. The following year she presented at a conference held in Antigua, Guatemala. 

Heidi’s school experiences as a young child were difficult due to some learning challenges. Her experiences learning math in 4th grade began a long hatred of math. Her high school classes were chosen with the goal of taking enough math classes to never have to learn any more math once she graduated. This goal completed, she attended Andrews University in Michigan and earned a BA in English and Secondary Education. After graduation, Heidi moved to Southern California and taught high school English while completing her MA in English with an emphasis in World Literature. After graduating, she moved to Guatemala and taught junior English at the Colegio de Americano de Guatemala in the capital. 

Upon her return to the US and a move to Dayton, Ohio, Heidi’s professional life collided with her math anxiety. She joined one of the State’s School Improvement teams with the expectation that she would be working in literacy. As life has a way of happening, Heidi soon found herself working with math and literacy teachers. Ironically, she was successful enough to be asked to continue supporting math as well as literacy. During her time working with teachers and her extensive studying to prepare, Heidi realized there were other ways to learn and truly build conceptual knowledge of the math students were learning. This realization prompted her studies in math content, pedagogy and ultimately her research in math anxiety. 

Following a move to Massachusetts, Heidi has worked as an independent consultant with districts throughout New England. She completed her doctorate at Northeastern University and researched how coaching can be used as an intervention for elementary school teachers’ math anxiety. She continues her research in classrooms with teachers and students to help alleviate the impact of math anxiety. 

Heidi is a co-host of the show Math 4 All with Molly Vokey, where they talk with prominent educational leaders about hot topics in math education and education in general.  Math 4 All was created to highlight the work of equity within education and provide a platform to new voices in education along with other well known educators. 

Heidi is the author of the PreK math curriculum included in the CREATION Kids a comprehensive early childhood curriculum. Additionally, she is the co-author, with Molly Vokey, of Math Activators for Reasoning Grades 3-10, a book designed to stimulate conversations around understanding fractions, decimals, and integers in elementary, middle, and high schools.