I became a professor because easing my students' fear of failure and cultivating the love of discovery in its place is among my greatest joys.
When people learn I'm a math professor, they often confess their aversion to math. That distaste is sadly well-earned: math education tends to favor memorization of obscure formulae over the development of an understanding of the beautiful logic of the subject. This harmful pedagogy is exacerbated by the common but unhealthy identification of good...
I became a professor because easing my students' fear of failure and cultivating the love of discovery in its place is among my greatest joys.
When people learn I'm a math professor, they often confess their aversion to math. That distaste is sadly well-earned: math education tends to favor memorization of obscure formulae over the development of an understanding of the beautiful logic of the subject. This harmful pedagogy is exacerbated by the common but unhealthy identification of good grades in math class with intelligence.
My approach to teaching begins with affirmation of my students' intelligence and compassion for their frustrations along path to learning. As a teacher, I am always patient and readily break ideas down into their fundamental parts to help students build their own mental models of how concepts fit together. I carefully select problems that are both within reach and challenging enough to provide a sense of accomplishment, and I offer friendly encouragement at every step.
My love of teaching began early: I took college calculus in 7th grade and helped my adult classmates understand the material. In 10th grade, I began to tutor calculus professionally and continued through college. While working on my PhD in abstract homotopy theory at Brown, I served as a teaching fellow, teaching classes in the math department, and continued to provide one-on-one tutoring. Since obtaining my PhD, I have been a professor in the UC Riverside math department.
Most of my teaching experience is with college-aged students, but I have taught students as young as six as well as middle and many high school students, and I have experience teaching all levels of math from middle school pre-algebra through graduate-level algebraic topology.
My compassion and patience have given me success teaching students with significant math anxiety, while my own experience as a precocious learner equips me to help advanced students realize their potential.
