I have been teaching for 24 years, in a variety of settings, from 5th to 12th grades. I have worked in Colorado, California, and Arizona, and have had the good fortune to experience a wide variety of educational models. I truly believe in the project based approach as the best way to prepare students for a productive and satisfying future. I first experienced this model at the Aspen and Carbondale Community Schools, and had additional experience at High Tech High Chula Vista.
One of the challenges as a math teacher at a PBL school is to balance the demands of a sequential subject with a model that seeks depth and inquiry. My basic beliefs about what math education should be help me to manage this tension. I believe that most schools fall prey to the myth that we teach math because students will use the skills and algorithms in their future. This leads them to fill a child with complex algorithms that are easily handled by computers, with thin connections to contrived questions. Doing this, it is unsurprising that many children feel disconnected from the subject. Instead, I look at math as humanity's best method of finding truth. It provides us with an unarguable technique for seeking answers to questions. Viewed as such, I see my role as helping students develop a set of critical thinking skills and techniques. Instead of memorizing formulae and techniques, I seek to encourage curiosity and creativity in the face of challenge. I ask students to build techniques for themselves, owning the knowledge, instead of taking it from me and repeating it. This method takes time, but it rewards students with a depth of understanding that endures.
I believe that we teach math for two reasons, which I feel are well represented in the two courses I teach. First, because it is beautiful. Calculus is one of mankind's great achievements, an par with the great works of literature. It all comes out of very natural set of questions around the nature of curved lines. I hope to make this beauty apparent to my students while giving them the skills they will need to progress at the college level.
The second main purpose of math is to answer hard questions. Statistics gives us a rigorous way to approach messy real world problems, and find truths within. In this course, I challenge students to approach a complex issue, look at real data, and use analytical techniques to illuminate it. In social issues, there are truths and there are opinions. I expect students to withhold their judgement until they can find the truths, and allow data to help guide them to well reasoned positions. This is a skill that is important for all citizens, as well as a basis for studying social sciences.
Math is a truly special subject, and I hope to share that with my classes. There is value in it for all, even those who believe they are not "math people".
One of the challenges as a math teacher at a PBL school is to balance the demands of a sequential subject with a model that seeks depth and inquiry. My basic beliefs about what math education should be help me to manage this tension. I believe that most schools fall prey to the myth that we teach math because students will use the skills and algorithms in their future. This leads them to fill a child with complex algorithms that are easily handled by computers, with thin connections to contrived questions. Doing this, it is unsurprising that many children feel disconnected from the subject. Instead, I look at math as humanity's best method of finding truth. It provides us with an unarguable technique for seeking answers to questions. Viewed as such, I see my role as helping students develop a set of critical thinking skills and techniques. Instead of memorizing formulae and techniques, I seek to encourage curiosity and creativity in the face of challenge. I ask students to build techniques for themselves, owning the knowledge, instead of taking it from me and repeating it. This method takes time, but it rewards students with a depth of understanding that endures.
I believe that we teach math for two reasons, which I feel are well represented in the two courses I teach. First, because it is beautiful. Calculus is one of mankind's great achievements, an par with the great works of literature. It all comes out of very natural set of questions around the nature of curved lines. I hope to make this beauty apparent to my students while giving them the skills they will need to progress at the college level.
The second main purpose of math is to answer hard questions. Statistics gives us a rigorous way to approach messy real world problems, and find truths within. In this course, I challenge students to approach a complex issue, look at real data, and use analytical techniques to illuminate it. In social issues, there are truths and there are opinions. I expect students to withhold their judgement until they can find the truths, and allow data to help guide them to well reasoned positions. This is a skill that is important for all citizens, as well as a basis for studying social sciences.
Math is a truly special subject, and I hope to share that with my classes. There is value in it for all, even those who believe they are not "math people".