Ben Mardell has taught in early childhood classrooms for more than 15 years. Ben was the afternoon preschool teacher at Oxford Street Day Care Cooperative in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Currently, he works at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education on the Making Learning Visible Project, a collaboration with the Municipal Infant-toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. The author of From Basketball to the Beatles: In Search of Compelling Early Childhood Curriculum (Heinemann, 1999), Ben is also a speaker in Heinemann's Professional Development programs.
Presentations by Ben Mardell emphasize the nuts and bolts of planning and implementing early childcare curriculum, as well as larger themes about early childhood curriculum—goals, moral education, and behavioral issues. Mardell's work at Harvard has also taught him about the vital area of documentation as well as some of the practical considerations involved I putting together useful documentation of children's learning.