A major part of my work is learning the mathematics and thinking about ways to teach various concepts to students. If we're going to teach our young people the beauty of science and mathematics, physics and chemistry, astronomy, engineering, architecture, computer science, economics and all of these glorious fields - how they learn and understand mathematics can be one of the most important predictors of their engagement (notice that I do not need to focus on their achievement; engagement is the "stuff" behind learning which informs student success).

Mathematics is a space that speaks to so much of what made me fall in love with education and working with young people back in high school.

In my courses, I make use of peer and cooperative learning strategies that integrate Socratic and informal discussion methods into the flow of our learning. Students play a central role in classroom learning often. This allows us all to see many different forms of mathematical thinking and problem solving. We also do a lot of mathematical modeling (or "model thinking") in class to accomplish our learning goals; what this really looks like is making the mathematics relevant to all of our lives. I also look for ways to adapt mathematical thinking to real-world scenarios.

I have also included a sample resource that can be downloaded by teachers. Many thanks to my colleague Dr. Hudson Gould (New York) for their assistance with preparing and editing the material below. You can also find a few lab assignments that students complete in my algebra course here.