Experience Summary
I have extensive experience teaching mathematics to a very diverse population of students.
Most recently, as a lecturer at Menlo College, I taught the following courses: Intermediate and College Algebra, Differential and Integral Calculus, and Mathematical Modeling with Spreadsheets. As an Assistant Professor in Southern Oregon University, I have taught mathematics courses including Precalculus, Linear Programming and Applications, Mathematics for elementary teachers and Calculus for Middle/High school teachers.
Additionally, over the course of my doctoral studies at Simon Fraser University I have been involved in undergraduate mathematics education at the Department of Mathematics, as well as teacher education at the Faculty of Education. Specifically, at the Department of Mathematics, I have been a teaching assistant for undergraduate mathematics courses, including Linear Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, and Precalculus, and I served as a tutor marker of Principles of Mathematics for Teachers course. At the Facutly of Education I have taught the Design for Learning Elementary Mathematics course, which was a "methods" course for pre-service teachers.
I held a position of an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Kingsborough Community College. I have taught Principles of Mathematics course designed for non-science majors as an introduction to various fields of mathematics and an Elements of Statistics course. While earning a Master’s Degree in Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, I taught discussion sections of undergraduate mathematics courses offered by the department. I have always received a positive feedback from students, who appreciated both challenge and support in my teaching approach.
Teaching Style
There are four components of good mathematics teaching that I feel are important and I try to implement in my practice. The first component is mathematical. It requires a teacher to be intimate with the mathematics that he or she is about to teach. A teacher must know the mathematics extremely well in order to be able to ascertain what it is that the student is thinking.
This is the second component of good teaching - the psychological. I believe that in order to be a good teacher one has to be able to crawl inside the mind of the students and see the material through their eyes with their previous knowledge. One has to remember what it feels like not to know.
Once it can be determined where the students are in their thinking, a teacher will be able to construct a logical progression of content – a bridge – that will help get the students from where they are to where a teacher wants them to be. The didactical component involves the organization of the content. It allows an educator the opportunity to examine the mathematics on its own.
The last but not least is the pedagogical component. It is the crossing of the bridge and involves the choosing of appropriate lesson structure to help facilitate the progression through the content. Students need to see and comprehend information in various ways. Not everyone follows similar patterns of learning; therefore, there is no one 'right' way to teach or learn and teacher’s sensitivity and knowledge about various teaching methods in addition to his or her deep understanding of the content are the basis of effective teaching. An educator needs to teach in a diverse ways, in order to reach all students.