Math creativity teaching by design

I have taught science at the high school level and middle school math level for 4 years. I’ve taught at both the public and private school level. I’m dual certified in both content areas.Currently I’m working as a 7th grade math teacher for a charter school in Perth Amboy. I also have experience tutoring low level students for a non-profit organization in Newark at the middle school level and helped improve a math grade for the director’s daughter.

I believe math needs to be a project based experience where students create something to make sense of number rather than simply only having them practice problem we want them to do over and over again. Research shows students learn best when they learn through what they experience and do. This is what Jean Piaget a psychologist was quoted as saying when he said “cognitive development was dependent on environmental experience and what students live through and experience with us as educators.”I’ve done various projects and activities where students engage with experience that include: - Determining and creating an appropriate circular area of a pizza box to create an effective solar cooker using aluminum foil, Saran Wrap, and a pizza box. - An integers elevation scale drawing where example word problems are created and solved showing drops and rises in the elevation of the land for the students’ favorite vacation spots. - An integers number line game where the number line is labeled on Scotch tape and placed on the floor of the classroom. Students write subtraction and addition expression involving integers based on a dice roll that indicates how many spaces they move in the positive and negative direction. Their team must be the first team to reach both ends of the number line in order to win. - A times table task in which students must shade and organize as many times tables on one side of a piece of graph paper as they can that will total at least 80 of them. Then you can have them mark off all the sections represented for each time table shaded on the graph and show a connection with division. - Students create a sleep schedule for the week and determine the percentage of hours they spend sleeping in a week. They propose how the number of hours they spend sleeping maybaffect or not affect their long term health based on what the average sleep percentage is for students their age. These are just some of the projects that I plan on doing that I will sell: - Creating an effective castle design using 3D shapes (using construction paper and rulers) by determining the surface area and volume of the 3D shapes. - Sports probability project where students will pick a sport and they will determine the likelihood of different scenarios they decide that will happen in a game and what will likely have to happen for those scenarios to be achieved. For example, if the strikeout probability for a hitter is 50% or 1/2 based on the number of times he strikes out, then what is the probability he will strike out 3 times in a row? Students create scenarios like these and present convincing arguments to the class what the probability is based on the scenarios they present.

I have been given honorable mentions from my coworkers as well as math teacher coaches from NTN most notably Ms. Robbins for great lesson plan ideas and activities.

I graduated from Montclair State University with a bachelors degrees in science. I also have recently in the last year received my standard certificate in middle school math.

Just some of the things I love to do is play mini golf, board games, swim, play basketball, and go on nature adventures. I own a dog and love to travel.