Teaching statement

I have always regarded mathematics with passion, and hence wanted to teach others
the beauty that Mathematics holds. Throughout my 4 years of teaching experience
Ive realized that one needs to know more than mathematics in order to teach it.
Being a good mathematician may not necessarily mean one is a good teacher. Hence
I have developed a teaching method that I have found most effective. Ive taught
in many schools and I show my students real life examples to show the importance
of mathematics and motivation, the theory for understanding and problem solving
for practice. I also make sure to give time apart from the class to make sure every
student has an equal opportunity to pass the course. In this way my students leave
my classroom with the understanding and importance of the mathematics they are
learning.
I have had the opportunity to teach in many CUNY colleges being a graduate stu-
dent in The CUNY Graduate Center. I have taught in City College of New York,
York College, Bronx Community College, New York City College of Technology and
Baruch College. Math departments from different schools have different rules and
promote different teaching methods. Although different, I have been able to success-
fully deliver the mathematics to my students while accommodating to the rules of
each math department. In City College of New York and New York City College of
Technology many math students study engineering, hence in a standard pre-calculus
course I would emphasize on giving examples catered towards engineering. For ex-
ample I would focus on the importance of being able to calculate very precisely. In
Baruch College many math students study Business and hence in a same standard
pre-calculus course I would emphasize on giving real life examples catered towards
business. For example I would focus on examples related to interest rates and max-
imizing profit. Making examples that are related to the majority of the students
interest allowed me to maximize their attention. Each student learns mathematics
for different reasons, my job is to be able to show them how to use mathematics as
a tool for their primary interest. This not only captures the students attention but
it also enhances motivation.
Many students or people in general do not like mathematics. It is a common assump-
tion that mathematics is a difficult topic and is especially unenjoyable. During the
four years I have been teaching, I have taught College Algebra, Pre-calculus, Math
Literacy, Calculus I, Calculus II and Calculus III and Business Calculus. Each course
has its own importance and beauty. It is important to teach my students how to use
mathematics as a tool but it is a personal importance that I teach my students to
appreciate mathematics for its own sake. Hence I teach my students the theory be-
hind any mathematics they learn. I believe this not only motivates students but also
realize how mathematicians have once thought. For example in a College Algebra or
Pre- Calculus course I would show my students how to think about composition of
functions as an operation just like addition or multiplication of numbers. This way
my students are able to understand how and why mathematicians may have thought

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of composition of functions. Teaching students the theory promotes mathematics
as a beautiful subject and enhances understanding. I would like my students to
leave my classroom not only having understood the material but also thinking that
Mathematics is a very enjoyable topic worth pursuing.
The theory and examples are very important but it is most important for a student
learning mathematics to practice through problem solving. I especially dedicate a
lot of time to solving many problems. I assign homework that I always go over. I
often have students display their work on the board and demonstrate how to solve
a problem as well. I also promote students to work together for homework. Having
students display their work on the board and promoting them to work together
keeps the classroom a very interactive one. This allows each student, especially
timid students, to be able to speak up if he/she is unable to understand something.
When I am solving a problem on the board I always give students time to assimilate
the methods and then ask me questions. I spend a lot of time on problems because
every student should understand the importance of problem solving. Every student,
even a graduate mathematics student, should understand the importance of working
on problems because one cannot understand mathematics without problem solving.
Throughout my teaching experience I have learned that all students are not equal,
each student has a different background with a different life. For example in a
Calculus course one student may have taken the pre-requisite class for Calculus just
a semester before and another student may be attending the same Calculus course
after having abandoned math for many years. Also, given two students with the
same background, each student may learn mathematics in different speeds. Hence
I give a lot of available time outside of the class to tutor students individually or
talk to each student about their individual situation. I have had the opportunity to
tutor students in CCNY during the Fall of 2012 and Spring of 2013 which helped me
able to interact with students in a non-classroom environment. I offer many chances
to make up for grades, as I believe it is more important that a student learns the
material than the rate of how quickly a student can learn a material. This way I
maximize the fairness for each student taking my course. As a teacher I believe it is
important to show compassion towards my students and give as much opportunities
to the students to learn the material.
I also had the opportunity of being a quantitative reasoning fellow at York College
and Bronx Community College. Here I had prepared lessons for students who are
performing poorly in mathematics. Students were not only coming to a math course
with a poor math background but with a language barrier. Most students spoke
English as their second language and here it was especially important to be able
to strategize the most effective way of teaching. Being bilingual made it easier for
students to be able to relate to me. This made me more capable of developing
a deeper relationship with my students, which helped them feel more comfortable
taking the course. Also in turn, I have gained the experience of teaching a class
whose first language is not English and whose math background is very poor. I
believe it is important to be able to teach a wide variety of subjects in mathematics.

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Mathematics should be a subject to be shared with the world not kept only amongst
mathematicians. I believe I have had good experience teaching the past four years
but I still have much more to learn from my students. I would like to continue to
teach, learn to teach and learn from my students about the different perspectives of
mathematics.