Could you tell us about your background? How did your experiences lead you to become a graduate student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville?
While working at a high school in Nebraska, I also worked on my master’s online through another SEC school in Applied Statistics. This program allowed me to see that graduate-level work was reachable and that I still enjoyed the joys of learning. At the same time, my late father’s health started declining, so I looked at opportunities that could support my return to TN after having grown up in Oak Ridge. While applying, I was considering several opportunities. Then, I realized my undergraduate mentors were still in the math department from my summer research at NIMBIOS. I reached out to them for guidance on which opportunity to choose and ultimately landed on returning to UTK for a PhD in math biology.
Please describe your experience partaking in events and workshops through TLI and CIRTL programs. How has this experience supported your goals as a graduate student and a future educator? If you have yet to participate in our TLI/CIRTL workshops and programs, please describe your experience with courses or other professional development opportunities that shaped how you teach. Which would you say had the most significant impact on you?
I completed the Certificate in Online Teaching & Learning certificate. Having been a longtime member of MAA, I had been reading on the differences between teaching in the K-12 world and the university level. So I wanted to take this training, even though I got the great pleasure of teaching K-12 lessons during COVID-19. This training gave me a streamlined approach to developing resources and keeping things organized and “student friendly.” It also made me aware of several resources and templates available by the university so that I can devote my time to the classroom experience, not just the organization of resources.
One example is the course calendar that I built, where I have items color-coded and outlined with due dates. The second iteration, which is in progress, will be a dynamic spreadsheet that auto-populates a course calendar and does the color coding for me. I do plan to continue educating, and making sure I have the right tools to teach at the collegiate level was important to me, which is why I am thankful for both these trainings and the new advising program implemented by the mathematics department for graduate teaching assistants/associates. This program provides hands-on training in teaching, developing resources, talking pedagogy, and providing student feedback.
These two elements, along with my prior experiences as an in-person student, a virtual student, and an asynchronous student, allow me to put myself in the shoes of my future students to ensure that how I present and organize materials make sense for them—not just that it is the easiest option for me. Students deserve high-quality instruction, which is only fair if I also expect high-quality work from my students.
Consider your teaching experiences: Do you have one or more experiences that show you positively impacted their learning?
I participated in a teacher preparation program to get my teaching license and worked in TN and NE, teaching grades 5 to 12, and now at the collegiate level. I have had the privilege of working with mentors, advisors, and great educators from various backgrounds. Learning how to engage students in person or virtually has been and will continue to be a learning process. Still, every day I strive to ensure that my students experience an educator who makes them feel engaged in the math classroom—something I had growing up and know impacted my life. This ranges from singing to my class the quadratic formula to sharing math puns and recounting memories of my own mistakes on similar math problems when I was in their shoes.
In high school, my lessons had the highest attendance rates, and I was nominated for Teacher of the Year, a testament to the positive learning environment I fostered. At the university level, I was honored to be recognized by the mathematics department as the winner for the Dorthea & Edgar D. Eaves Graduate Student Teaching Award (senior level for excellence in teaching), further affirming my commitment to engaging and effective teaching.