My teaching interests

Juniata College is a small liberal arts college, so most of my classes are smaller than 30 students and most upper levels are around 10 students. I have also taught at another small liberal arts college, Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, WV. I have interests in teaching students to read, write and talk about mathematics. Also, I like to give in-class problems when time is available. Student understanding of definitions fascinates me as well and I tell my students I will test definitions explicitly on exams. I have tried definition and theory quizzes in linear algebra, discrete math, and multivariate calculus to see the quizzes' effects.

Technology aids for teaching mathematics are also something I'm interested in. In particular I try to pick among the large number of available technologies to find the ones that best enhance student learning. My current new technology to learn and use is clickers which I am using in Calculus 1. In addition, I have used Mathematica labs in Linear Algebra and Discrete Math at WJU. At Juniata I used Maple labs in Calculus 1 and 2, Fathom and Minitab in Introductory and Advanced Probability and Statistics, and Excel and programs written in Maple for Numerical Analysis and Chaos and Fractals.

All of my courses are up on public drive at Juniata College and so are only available to current students. However here are some of the talks I have given and some of the materials I am using or have used in my classes, some of which I have developed and others that I have adapted for my classroom use. If you'd like more information about any of the courses or the materials, feel free to email me.

Talks given


Clckers

Here is a talk session that I gave at the Allegheny Mountain Section NExT Fall meeting in 2007. It is in PowerPoint format with clicker questions inserted. I also gave a shorter talk about my experiences at the Spring 2007 Allegheny Mountain Section Meeting.

Definitions and theory

Here is a talk I gave about testing defintions at the Spring 2003 section meeting of the Allgheny Mountain Section of the MAA.

Course Materials


Introduction to Research Seminar

This course was developed to help students prepare for their required senior thesis and the course plan and assignments were designed by me.
The syllabus for the seminar
A talk I gave about the course at the Spring 2004 section meeting of the Allgheny Mountain Section of the MAA.
Here is an outline of the assignments from the course.

Linear Algebra labs

We have a laptop lab and use Mathematica in most upper level courses. Most of my labs relate directly to problems and sections from Kolman and Hill's Linear Algebra and so require the book. Here are a few labs that don't require it as much.
Basic Matrix Operations, Row Reduction, and Elementary Matrices
Wavelets lab
Linear transformations and graphics

Calculus Materials

I've taught calculus out of two series of calculus books. At Juniata we use the Hughes-Hallet et al. books and at WJU we used Stewart along with How to Ace Calculus.
Here is a hyperbolic trig functions worksheet, designed to have the students deriving the derivatives of the functions from the definitions involving e and deriving the derivatives of the inverse functions using implicit differentiation.
Here are two sheets of problems for related rates and optimization. These are just a fairly representive sample of problems.
Here is a collection of problems designed for using the integral tables and Mathematica.
Here are two sheets degsigned to work on series testing and Maclaurin series for sine and cosine. The first is just a series of problems and the second is a practice exercise with lots of nudging.