Dr. Karin Pringle is a Distinguished Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and the Director of Master of Mathematics and Graduate Certification Programs. She began teaching at the University of Oregon. Her first job after getting my Ph.D. was at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW), where she worked for fourteen years before coming to the University of Tennessee for family reasons.
“In this transition, I switched from a tenured associate professor with research, teaching, and service obligations to a lecturer with mainly teaching obligations. This transition allowed me to focus on teaching and improve my craft. In the last decade, I have enjoyed teaching Precalculus, Calculus, and Linear Algebra classes. Since 2020 I have taught in our Master of Mathematics program and have been the director of the program for the past year. The MM program is a fully online program that caters to High School Math teachers.”
Dr. Pringle credits her teaching philosophy to the great teachers she had as a student at Lewis and Clark College and the University of Oregon, as well as to her colleagues at UNCW and UT. She values the liberal arts education and small class sizes that Lewis and Clark and the University of Oregon provided.
Dr. Pringle has enjoyed many workshops and book groups focused on teaching throughout her career, which have pushed her to try new methods in the classroom.
My goal is to provide instruction and make the connections that allow for our students to grow in their skills, mindset, and confidence. I come to class with enthusiasm for the content and aim to encourage my student’s interest and curiosity in how the subject content intersects with their other courses and majors and to be persistent and not give up. I aim to build a classroom structure so that students can be inspired by each other and the content. For the first 19 years of my teaching experience, I taught classes of size 2-40 students. While at Tennessee, I’ve taught classes of size 20 to size 350. When I was in college and graduate school, I always had small class sizes and knew most of my professors well. This experience laid the foundation for my teaching philosophy. No matter what the size of the class, I try to recreate the small class size atmosphere in any way I can (Not always successfully, though!).”
When asked about a moment or experience that has significantly impacted her career, she mentioned that one of her favorite things is when students stop her to tell her how a class, they had together has impacted them in their future classes. Or when a student has an example of using the math content and wants her to tell the next class about their experience. Dr. Pringle said, “I feel grateful to be a positive part of their journey.”
As far as the future of higher education is concerned, Dr. Pringle said, “What is most important is our humanity and exploring how to learn and share with each other. It is crucial to remember that all our human endeavors are needed, both the arts and the sciences and everything in between. We also need all humans to be encouraged and have the agency to explore their potential. Whatever new configurations we place in our education systems, students need a connection to each other and their teacher for optimal learning.”