I try to not answer questions before students ask them. Most of my teaching, then, is focused on guiding students towards asking those questions. For math, for example, I do this with two main principles:
- Math is a social activity: It is meant to be fun. Doing math is the only way to feel what math feels like, and so my teaching is example-driven to allow students to have their own "Aha!" moments and form their own conjectures.
- Math is a social activity: It must be interactive and sensitive to students as people. The bulk of the thinking should not be happening in my or any one student’s head, and most of my teaching focus is directed to asking: Where is the thinking happening in the room?
The techniques I use to realize these principles can be found in my Teaching Statement, and the many forms of teaching and outreach I've engaged in can be found in my academic CV.
Experience
I almost always have a teaching outlet for myself. Right before joining a cohort at the Recurse Center, I was keeping teaching in my life by:
- Substitute teaching with pre-schoolers at forest schools in Oakland in my free time.
- Teaching an introductory programming course in Python for international Latinx high schoolers with the EduExplora program.
I have extensive experience across a wide range of age groups and levels of expertise and I have taught communities and topics ranging from elementary school aspiring scientists, to adolescent and adult dancers in Baile Folklórico, to graduate-level courses in Computer Science at UC Berkeley. To see my broad teaching and outreach experience see my academic CV.