courses

• fall2004
• spring2005
• summer 2005
• fall 2005
• spring 2006
• summer 2006
• fall 2006
• spring 2007
• summer 2007
• fall 2007
• winter 2008
• spring 2008
• summer 2008
• fall 2008
• winter 2009
• mathnotes
• resources

previous -- view my teaching portfolio here

• Overview
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• CV - Word format
• General Cover Letter
• Comments
• Philosophy
• Training
• Goals
• Supplementary Materials
• Transcripts

Overview

Welcome.

        This site contains the electronic version of my comprehensive teaching portfolio.  You will find here a collection of links to pages that contain my complete list of courses taught, along with evaluations and comments from students and supporting materials.  In some cases, you will find sample webpages I built for the section.  You will also find information on contact information for faculty and supervisors that I worked with, where appropriate.  Feel free to browse.  And please let me know if you think something is missing.

1. Private tutoring experience and rates (1988 - present)
   I'm at my best when teaching one-on-one.
2. Cleveland State University, rank: graduate assistant (2000-2002)
   CSU is an urban state university with a large commuter student body.  Many of the students are older students returning to school after many years away, or are completing their educations after beginning them at communities colleges in the area.  The math students are often students who struggle with math, however, there is a strong engineering program at the school.  When I worked at Cleveland State my responsibilities were largely for tutoring students in the business math sequence in such subjects as basic stats, algebra, matrices and linear programming, financial math, calculus and probability.  I returned to work at Cleveland State University in January 2007 as an adjunct.
3. University of Pittsburgh, rank: teaching assistant (2002-2004)
   Pitt is also a large urban university, but is significantly larger than Cleveland State and served mostly students entering college immediately after high school.  Except for business calculus, the courses I TAed for were differential equations and intro to real analysis; these students have significantly different needs than students struggling with basic algebra.  The business calculus students and the algebra students generally needed me more to get through basic problems.  The differential equations students tended to avoid recitations if they could.  The intro to real analysis students asked for more difficult problems.
4. Duquesne University, rank: teaching assistant (2003-2004)
   The program I worked with at Duquesne was a business program for students who were working and trying to return to school, usually to attain the benefits of promotion.  The students had mathematics requirements in finite math and/or introductory calculus, however, the students were largely thrust into these courses without a rigorous review of algebra.  The classes were quite small--five students was my experience--however; because of their lack of preparation, the personal attention helped only as much as the effort they were willing to put in, and many of the students struggled mightily.
5. Community College of Allegheny County, rank: Adjunct Faculty, Mathematics (2003 - present)
   CCAC is a college with several campuses around the city of Pittsburgh; I worked at their South Campus.  Students were generally older and returning to school and generally divided into two groups: those that worked very hard, and those who stopped attending.  Classes were smaller than at Pitt--generally a maximum of around 20, though once unmotivated students stopped attending, the class often ended up with 7-12 instead.  Courses in which students were more likely to struggle with math usually had more contact hours.  The long classes, however, takes some time to take full advantage of.  It's a bit of change of gears from classes in which the lecturer has to race through material to get everything done.
6. Robert Morris University, rank: Lecturer (2004 - 2006)
   RMU used to be a private business college, but for many years now it has been undergoing rapid expansion.  It still has many students returning to school after many years, but it now also has a large population of fresh-out-of-high-school students who reside on campus.  The school is still working to raise the average SAT score of admitted students, and many of the courses which I teach have students in them who struggle with math a great deal.  I struggle with trying to help them with limited class time, and very large classes--typically around 35.  During my first year at RMU, few students came to me for help outside of class, in part because the offices of the math department were relatively far from the center of campus.  This has been remedied in year two, and I hope that my experiences in year one can help me find a way to communicate the material to my students better.
7. DeVry University Online, rank: Adjunct Faculty (2006 - present)
   I really enjoy teaching online at DeVry.  It's not just the convenience of it, although there is that, but also the interaction with the students is great.  The format they use really lets me focus on teaching rather than grading and other more mundane activities.  I look forward to continuing my work with them, and expanding my teaching repertoire.  I've been excited about being able to teach a computer class for them in addition to my math courses.
8. ITT Technical Institute, rank: Adjunct Faculty (2006)
   This was a fall pick-up course as I was moving out of the area at the close of the term.
9. Columbus State Community College, rank: Adjunct Faculty (2007 - present).
   I was hired beginning in the Spring quarter of 2007, shortly after moving into the area, and I really hope to stay here and expand this position into a full-time post.  I teach for the Mathematics department.
10. Baker College Online, rank: Adjunct Faculty. (2008 - present)
    I pursued an online teaching position at Baker because of my excellent experience teaching online at DeVry.  Baker promises me the ability to teach English courses, in addition to math courses.  I'm looking forward to the challenge.  Teaching online has proven to be a far more stable teaching prospect than teaching on campus.  I'm hoping that by decreasing my dependence on my in-person classes, I'll be able to keep my workload more consistent throughout the year.  I'm also looking forward to Baker's smaller class-sizes and fast-paced online courses.  Because of the portability and flexibility of teaching online, I expect to keep this job for some time.
11. National American University, rank: Associate Faculty (2008-present)
    For the freedom to dictate my own schedule, I continue to pursue online teaching positions.  National interested me in particular for the chance to use WebCT as the instructional environment.