My Teaching Philosophy
When I first immigrated to the US in November of 2008, I did not speak English. In general, languages were not my forte in middle school, especially English, and I did not find out that we would be moving until the month before. This means that not only was I completely out of touch with everything socially and culturally, I was also unable to communicate with anyone at school. But thanks to the patience of my ESL teachers, in particular Mrs. Moret, I slowly got over my fear. During an approximately two decades worth of schooling, I have met many great teachers and mentors and from them, I learned of the difference that a good teacher can make.
Anyone who tries hard enough will succeed one way or another, but teaching inspires a path. If you ask established scientists, mathematicians, professionals, what influenced them to pursue their careers, most of the time their answers would involve a teacher, a parent, or someone who opened their eyes about the importance and the joys of doing what they do. In my mind, the only way for teaching to make sense is for it to inspire.
Past Courses
I started tutoring the summer after my freshman year for the Joaquin Bustoz Math Sciences Honors Program and the University Academic Success Program, which lasted for about two years in total (2013 - 2014). Then, I became a teaching assistant for three core physics classes, mathematical physics (PHY 201), and classical physics (310 and 311), during my senior year (2015 - 2016). I also took part in the mentoring of the students in our REU programs Mentoring through Critical Transition Points (2016 - 2017) and (AM)∧2 REU (2018 - 2019).
When I became a graduate student, I was assigned as a TA/grader for courses in multivariate calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, advanced calculus, intermediate real analysis, and math models in medicine. But I always wanted to teach my own class. I actually went through the teaching training with very good reviews from the seasoned professors for my mocked lectures, yet unforeseen circumstances prevented me from teaching my own course until the Fall of 2019. Nevertheless, the course that I was assigned to teach was a perfect match for my interest: MAT 251 Calculus for Life Sciences.
As I was going through the materials for the course, I noticed how irrelevant the examples and exercises in the textbook and web homework were for the students of the life sciences. Thus, I decided to collect the interests of the students at the beginning of the semester to find examples that better engage them in classes. I also invited several speakers to share the excitement of applying mathematics to solve real-life problems in biology with them. Unfortunately, not everything works. But I learned from it and hopefully one day, I can do a better job to motivate the necessity of mathematics in biological research. For now, I just want to share several (extra credit) projects that the students did and presented in class. The idea behind the project is for the students to explore how mathematics can be used to solve problems that they are interested in by analyzing recent applied math research articles. Most of the classes were freshman and sophomore non-math majors, which shows how possible something like this is if math teachers believe in the ability of their students (e.g. the Pygmalion effect).
Alexandra Hager - The relationship between socioeconomic health inequalities in Ecuador
Nicole Kaiser, Katia Renaud, Danielle Ziegler, Gabriella Vaitkus - A report on Lotka-Volterra model and predator prey dynamics
Keyleigh Pajor, Avery Bennington, Cambrei Hoffart, Emma Nelson - Mathematical modeling of glioblastoma multiforme growth