Teaching

1. Courses I've Taught
2. Philosophy and Values of Teaching
3. Miscellany

• Algebra I and Data Analysis, taught 2006-7, was a double-length course of ninth graders, to prepare them for the Maryland high school high-stakes exam called the HSA. The topics taught in this class include lines (as pattern, as equation, and as graph), functions, representations of data, linear regression of data, and probability.
  
  
• Geometry, taught Fall 2007, Spring 2008, and Fall 2008, is mostly tenth graders (with a few ninth and eleventh graders mixed in). I designed my own curriculum to a greater extent here, so that was fun. Geometry is also great because it is so hands-on. Big topics include measurement, similar figures, symmetries and isometries of the plane, and proofs, all applied to two- and three-dimensional shapes.
  
  
• Algebra II with Trigonometry, taught Spring 2008 and Spring 2009, is an advanced course with eleventh graders in the engineering program. Its topics include quadratics (as equation, as parabola), complex numbers, matrices, systems of linear equations, linear programming, trigonometry of triangles, trigonometry of circles, trigonometric functions, exponential functions, and conic sections. Whew!
  
  
• Computer Integrated Manufacturing, taught Fall 2007 and Fall 2008, is an eleventh-grade engineering course, part of the nationally-recognized Project Lead the Way. Students learn how to program a CNC milling machine to carve initials and create jewelry boxes, how to operate and program a robotic arm, and how to integrate pieces of computer-controlled machinery together into a Flexible Manufacturing System. A few pictures are available here.
  
  
• Principles of Engineering, will be taught by me in Spring 2009.
  
  

I try to focus on understanding the big ideas of a subject, since these are what students will likely take away with them even if they don't remember the quadratic formula. I also am a believer in project-based learning, since I think students learn better when they discover the ideas for themselves (in a guided project) and when they engage hands-on in doing mathematics or engineering.

Here is a paper I wrote in 2007 about my philosophy of teaching. In it I relate my personal philosophy to both the Progressive and Perennialist schools of thought in education. I also have been greatly influenced by the popular education ideas of Paulo Freire.

Here is a mission statement for my ideal school. I have used this mission statement twice in my academic career: once for a Williams course in the Psychology of Education in 2004, where it went along with a paper that discussed each numbered point of the mission statement in more detail; once for a Johns Hopkins course in Urban School Reform in 2008, where it went along with a charter school proposal for a new Baltimore City Middle-High School.

On my journey of student teaching, I created an introduction to basic (right-triangle) trigonometry, which can be found here.

Students at Patterson High School (or interested eighth graders in the Baltimore City Public Schools who wish to come to Patterson for its engineering program) may fill out an online application to be a part of Patterson's Project Lead the Way engineering pathway here or here. More information about the program can be found at our program's website.