Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

I have been an instructor for the last 10 years, but my role as and educator extends almost 17 years. I started from humble beginnings working in the tutoring lab at College of the Canyons, then as a TA running discussion sections and teaching courses as the instructor of record every summer in grad school at UCSB, to teaching full time as a postdoc at the University of Iowa, and as a postdoc at the University of Oklahoma. Throughout much of this time I was a student along side learning how to be a teacher. This afforded me the opportunity develop my teaching methods from the perspective of a student, and incorporate all the methodologies I appreciated the most as a student.

In practice, this means that I develop all concepts from first principles, asking my students lots of questions, speaking to them at a level appropriate for their understanding, and explaining applications of the material. My goals as a math teacher are threefold: I aim to create an environment where students feel comfortable and encouraged to ask questions, to deliver high quality lectures that promote critical and independent thinking, and to help foster a deeper interest in mathematics through personal excitement and visual representations of the material.

Approach To Virtual Learning

The Covid-19 pandemic brought new challenges to teaching as Universities all over the world were suddenly forced into virtual teaching. At the start of lockdown, I was teaching Calculus I and Linear Algebra, and I worked diligently to make the transition to a virtual setting a smooth process for my students. During a time of uncertainty, it was paramount that I find a way to deliver a high quality learning experience online and deliver on my core teaching goals.

I ultimately decided to prerecord lectures where I narrate and explain well organized slides that I create on my iPad. The rationale behind this decision is that it eliminates a lot of potential issues that come with live ‘Zoom’ lectures, such as not every student having a reliable internet connection at home that will enable them to view an entire hour long live lecture, which can result in them missing vital information. Another issue is that students learning from home my not be in the same state, timezone, or even country. Which means that those students my have to tune into a live lecture at awkward hours. The prerecorded lectures get around this issue since the students can view them at their own pace, and are downloadable so they can be viewed offline. The video lectures also have the additional benefit of only being around 20 to 25 minutes in length, which makes them more digestible and easily rewatched.

Here is one of my lectures from my Fall 2020 Linear Algebra course.

Video Lecture on Linear Transformations.

Instructor of Record OU

Math 3333 – Linear Algebra I (2 Sections) | Spring 2024
Math 2433 – Calculus and Analytic Geometry III (2 Sections) | Fall 2023
Math 3333 – Linear Algebra I (2 Sections) | Spring 2023
Math 1823 – Calculus and Analytic Geometry I (2 Sections) | Fall 2022
Math 3113 – Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations (2 Sections) | Spring 2022
Math 1823 – Calculus and Analytic Geometry I (2 Sections) | Fall 2021

Instructor of Record UIowa/UCSB

Upper Division Courses TA’d