Mathematics PhD

Marc F.

Hello,

I earned my PhD in pure mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2008, after graduating with a BA in mathematics from the same university in 2000. During my eight years in the graduate program, I taught undergraduate mathematics classes ranging from algebra to linear algebra. After graduating, I taught in private boarding high schools Northfield Mount Hermon in Gill, Massachusetts and St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. Since then I have taught mathematics at the American University in Da Nang, Vietnam, and my current job is teaching mathematics at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan.

As you can see, my experience in teaching is with high school and university aged students. I enjoy teaching students of all levels to appreciate and master the language and problem-solving skills necessary for mathematics. All of my teaching experience has been in the traditional classroom, and my tutoring experience has been both online and in-person (always 1-1). I received an AP AB and BC Calculus certification from a conference I attended in Singapore, and at my current university I won a university-wide award for academic integrity.

My approach in teaching mathematics is to begin by having students gain confidence in their abilities. I have had great success in this regard, even for the most "math-phobic" students. After that, the students are ready to begin diving into more thought-provoking and challenging problems. I always aim to have students understand what they are learning rather than simply memorizing or following a specific pattern/algorithm.