2022/23
Advisor for nine 10th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Was a mentor and chaperone for 24 students traveling on a 10 day international trip to Lesvos, Greece to experientially learn about the ongoing refugee crisis. Additionally, planned and led pre-travel and post-travel meetings.
Organized a book club of Edwin Abbott's Flatland with six students and a second faculty member. In addition to reading and discussing the book, we also had a "movie day" where we watched the movie adaptation of the book. (We had 4 meetings.)
Organized a book club of Ben Orlin's Math Games with Bad Drawings with eight students and a second faculty member. In addition to reading and discussing half of book, we spent our meeting times playing math games. (We had 4 meetings.)
Organized a book club of Helen Benedict and Ewad Awwadawnan's Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece with two students who went on the Lesvos trip about refugees that I chaperoned, and another faculty member on the trip. (We had 1 meeting to discuss the book that we read over Spring Break.)
Organized a trip to take 10 students (who went with me on the Lesvos trip on refugees I chaperoned) and 10 faculty members to see The Jungle at St. Ann's Warehouse, a play about refugees trapped in Calais, France.
Co-organized the New York Math League Contests at Packer.
Ben Orlin's Math Games with Bad Drawings with eight students and a second faculty member. In addition to reading and discussing half of book, we spent our meeting times playing math games. (We had 4 meetings.)
Co-advised the Packer for Lesvos club, which was revived this year.
Co-advised Packer's math club.
With a colleague, revived the Math Space at Packer in the hallway outside of the math office where students could informally look at math-related books, puzzles, and various tiles to put together in various configurations.
Advised "Crafting for a Cause," which is a club where students learned to do various crafts (e.g. origami, knitting) and tied the crafts to learning about endangered species and knitting items of clothing for underserved populations.
Led an independent study with two students on chaos theory, where they improved their understanding of coding (especially making math graphics) while exploring the logistic equation and bifucation diagrams.
Organized with two other teachers a "Knitting Circle" as a "Teacher Growth Tuesday" session.
Was part of a "Teacher Growth Tuesday" group with Upper School math teachers who taught sample classes and looked at curriculum and activities together.
Encouraged particular students to submit their math exploration projects to the Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Mathematical Communication at the Museum of Math. One earned "Runner Up" status (2023) with a prize of $314.
Co-organized with another teacher the creation of a poignent and hilarious "farewell book" for a colleague leaving the Middle School after 20 years at Packer.
Wrote 24 college letters of recommendation.
2021/22
Advisor for nine 9th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Continue to advise the ninth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. The student leaders, afterr much work, decided they didn't have enough submissions to put together a journal this year.
Was part of a "Teacher Growth Tuesday" group with Middle and Upper School math teachers who read some of Yuki Hiroshi's Math Girls Talk About Integers together, as well as have conversation about our curriculum.
Created and executed my Veteran Supervision and Evaluation Observation process, which focused on observing groupwork in other disciplines, and then pivoted to creating a new structure for a groupwork activity involving "Proofs without Words" in my Advanced Precalculus class.
Wrote 7 college letters of recommendation.
2020/21
Advisor for eight 12th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Organized a book club of Anna Weltman's Supermath: The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil about the ways that mathematics shapes and is shaped by the society around us. Additionally we had the author zoom in to speak with us. Attended by five students and one additional teacher. (We had three meetings.)
Organized, with a student, a book club of Mario Livio's Is God A Mathematician? about the philosophical undergirdings of mathematics, grappling fundamentally with the question of if mathematics is discovered and invented and where (in the corporeal or world of the mind) that mathematics exists. The book club had juniors and seniors in it. (We had two meetings.)
Co-advised the Packer for Lesvos club which focused on bringing attention and spreading information about the refugee crisis in Europe, specifically focused on Lesvos. The club members created a newsletter with information about the fire in the Moria camp, how the refugee camps were dealing with COVID, and a set of resources to learn more which went out to the larger community. They also planned and executed a short-film screening of the documentary 4.1 miles as well as a discussion for over 30 students (February 2020).
Summer 2020: Participant in Change Committee, whose goal is "to diversity the curriculum and enable all of the students at Packer to be able to see themselves reflected in their classes, their curriculum, and school culture. We aim for Packer to better teach and meaningfully celebrate BIPOC experiences."
Was on the hiring committee for a (late) math department hire (Summer 2021)
Worked extensively with a student on an individual exploration of the logistic equation and bifurcation diagrams; student ended up creating a long research paper on his research summarizing his process of discovery and analysis of his results.
Continue to advise the ninth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Because of the pandemic and remote/hybrid teaching, the student leaders created a paper/digital version of the journal [PDF]
Wrote 22 college letters of recommendation.
2019/20
Adviser for eight 11th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
With a colleague, designed and created a Math Space at Packer in the hallway outside of the math office where students could informally engage with different kinds of mathematics (from browsing math books to playing math games with each other to filling in math-based coloring books)... founded with the fundamental principle "if you build it, they will come." Rotated the objects and activities in the Math Space.
Organized a book club of Amir Alexander's Infinitesimal (about the controversy over the concept of the "infinitesimial" in the tumultuous religious and political environs of 16th and 17th century Europe), attended by three students and one additional teacher. (We had three meetings.)
Organized a book club for students and faculty of E.M. Forster' Howards End with the head librarian and an English teacher. We planned this book club for students during the covid-19 quarentine, to give students something to do that was away from their laptop and phone screens. (We had two meetings.)
Organized a book club of Hannah Fry's Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms with a student in one of my classes during the covid-19 quarentine. We had two teachers and five students participate. (We had two meetings.)
Participated in a book club of Chanel Miller's Know My Name (a memoir about a sexual assault survivor) with both teachers and students.
Worked with a small group of students who went on a trip to Lesvos to learn about the refugee crisis to (a) inform our school community about the crisis and (b) hold a drive to bring much-needed supplies to Lesvos (to NGOs they contacted there). We were able to bring 3 large suitcases and around 50 two gallon ziplock bags of clothing to donate, along with a few laptops.
Was a mentor and chaperone for 24 students traveling on a 10 day international trip to Lesvos, Greece to experientially learn about the ongoing refugee crisis. Additionally, planned and led pre-travel and post-travel meetings.
Served on the Veteran Evaluation Committee for an English teacher colleague which centered around observations and pedagogical techniques.
Co-led a Packer In Action day workshop for 15 students with Teresa Genaro on "The Bechdel Test and the Male Gaze" (5 March 2020).
Continue to work with a science teacher on the eighth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Wrote 22 college letters of recommendation.
2018/19
Member of hiring committee for one Upper School math teacher opening.
Organized a book club of How Not To Be Wrong with six students.
Adviser for eight 10th grade students.
Was a mentor and chaperone for 24 students traveling on a 10 day international trip to Lesvos, Greece to experientially learn about the ongoing refugee crisis. Additionally, planned and led pre-travel and post-travel meetings.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the seventh year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with eight students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Wrote 16 college letters of recommendation.
2017/18
Was the faculty mentor for a second-year (and new to Packer) math teacher.
Organized a book read of Flatland with four students.
Organized a book read of The Man Who Knew Infinity with four students.
Revised and co-taught a two-week course titled Logging Off. The course met for six hours a day and had participants pledge to not use the Internet for the duration of the course (smartphones were collected and sealed up). By going Internet-free, students were able to reflect on how the Internet impacts their lives, and learn through readings and field trips about how the Internet is shaping the nature of what knowledge is, how information is sent and received, and how relationships are formed.
Adviser for eight 9th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded three years ago, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-or-more-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Also had Pelinomials attend the second annual Brooklyn Math Bowl, where we came in first place.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the sixth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with eight students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
Wrote 14 college letters of recommendation.
2016/17
Member of hiring committee for two Upper School math teacher openings.
Assisted in the development and co-taught a two-week course titled Logging Off. The course met for six hours a day and had participants pledge to not use the Internet for the duration of the course (smartphones were collected and sealed up). By going Internet-free, students were able to reflect on how the Internet impacts their lives, and learn through readings and field trips about how the Internet is shaping the nature of what knowledge is, how information is sent and received, and how relationships are formed.
Organized a book read of Hidden Figures for thirteen students and five faculty members. Helped student leaders be the discussion leaders in four mini-groups organized by theme (race, gender, history, literary). Also organized a pen-pal collaboration with a school in North Carolina for six students to exchange letters about their experiences with the book.
Adviser for eight 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for three seniors students
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded two years ago, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-or-more-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the fifth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
2015/16
Member of the search committee for a new Assistant Head of School and Academic Dean. All committee members took 3 days off of classes to do the interviewing.
Chaperoned a 10 day trip to the Andalucia region of Spain with over 100 tenth graders. Responsible for a group of 10 students, and co-led an "exploration team" of 16 students about architecture.
Adviser for eleven 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for three seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded two years ago, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-or-more-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Our team regularly fielded between 15 and 20 students per competition. This year we had three student leaders who we worked with to advertise and promote the team.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the fourth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
2014/15
Adviser for eleven 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for four seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
Revised and co-taught Experimentum Crucis, a two-week course where students reproduced important science experiments which are usually held up as watershed moments in science, and put them in their historical contexts. In this course, students met for 6 hours a day, and read and discussed key primary and secondary source articles, did lab work,, and constantly asked the twin questions "What is Science?" and "How does Science change?"
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded in the previous year, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Our team regularly fielded between 15 and 20 students per competition.
Designed (with another teacher) an Advanced Geometry course from scratch, by deciding the core ideas we wanted to get across, coming up with a cohesive organizational structure to suit those ideas, and writing all the curriculum and supplemental materials for the course. In addition, we inaugurated an "art and geometry exploration" that utilized extensive use of Geogebra and worked in tandem with our curriculum.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the third year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Mentored an 11th grade student in a year-long independent study centering around generating functions. Our core text was Hiroshi Yuki's Math Girls.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
Served on a faculty-student panel for the "8th Grade Upper School Night" (to tell 8th graders what the Upper School at Packer is like) [October 28, 2014]
Served on the Supervision and Evaluation committee for a veteran English teacher who wanted assistance engaging his seniors in the fourth quarter.
Served on the hiring committee for an Upper School math teacher.
Served on the Lower School Math Curriculum NYSAIS committee (for the NYSAIS accreditation report).
Served on the Middle and Upper School Math Curriculum NYSAIS committee (for the NYSAIS accreditation report)
2013/14
Awarded the Stutt Chair of Math, Science, and Technology ("awarded to a faculty member with five or more years of service to Packer in the Math, Science, or Technology departments in the Middle or Upper Schools" once every three years) [2014-2017]
Inaugurated the Upper School's first math team (the Pelinomials), which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Our team usually fielded between 15 and 20 students per competition. After the competition ended, a core group of members wanted to continue meeting, so we started having weekly 7:30am practices on Friday mornings where I expose students to standard competition problems and solution techniques
Designed and implemented with another teacher Experimentum Crucis, a two-week course where students reproduced important science experiments which are usually held up as watershed moments in science, and put them in their historical contexts. In this course, students met for 6 hours a day, and read and discussed key primary and secondary source articles, did lab work, took a field trip to the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, and constantly asked the twin questions "What is Science?" and "How does Science change?"
Continue to work with a science teacher on the second year of our new digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills
Working individually with two students exploring chaos theory through an investigation of the logistic curve. We drew connections with sequences, we used Excel to investigate the end behavior of the sequences and to graph them, we started manually generating the bifurcation diagram, and we explored cobweb plots.
Adviser for eleven 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had around a hundred students take it (in line with our numbers from the previous couple years).
Led a 90 minute workshop on creating an online support community with fresh Math for America teachers who were about to enter their own classroom for the first time. I did this the previous summer too — but I changed the content quite a bit this time. (The slides from this workshop are here.)
2012/13
Worked with a science teacher to create a new digital math-science journal called Intersections. Tapped four students to create the mission for the journal, and held weekly meetings with the students to develop the journal. Helped students create a presentation for the Upper School student body. (The initial idea for the journal is outlined here and the blow-by-blow about how it was created is here.)
Was a new faculty mentor for a new Upper School math teacher
Designed an Advanced Precalculus course from scratch, reorganizing the curriculum and creating new materials. The philosophy undergirding the materials is that students work in groups to collaboratively create the mathematics — where no formula is given and all concepts are developed through problems. (Examples are here and here.)
Served as a faculty representative on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee for a little over one quarter. Helped transition the new faculty advisor to lead the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (Click here to learn more about the SFJC.)
Adviser for nine 10th grade students
Part of the Scheduling Committee (a group of teachers and administrators who met for a few three hour meetings to discuss various options for changing the daily academic schedule)
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had around a hundred students take it (in line with our numbers from the previous couple years). At the end of the year, the upper school faculty members nominate and vote on one club or organization that they believe has given back to the community in a substantial way. This year math club was the recipient of the J. Geoffrey Pierson Leadership Award.
2011/12
Faculty adviser on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (The faculty advisor runs the committee, and is not just a voting member.)
Created the website for the inaugural Twitter Math Camp 2012 (TMC 12) conference; Led a workshop titled “Welcome to the Dark Side” which had participants reflect on what made their experiences on blogs and twitter positive, and what barriers they felt when joining the community (the results of this workshop informed this website I created to assist teachers in joining our online community). Slides from the workshop are here.
Was involved in a peer observation group, where teachers observed each other and had follow up conversations, and also performed video analysis of our teaching. Additionally, the group talked about creating an informal peer observation network.
Adviser for ten 10th grade students
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had 113 students take it (continuing our trend from the previous couple years).
Assisted with hiring a new Upper School math teacher and a new Upper School learning specialist
2010/11
Faculty adviser on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (This is a change from the previous two years; the faculty advisor runs the committee, and is not just a voting member.)
Planned, with a dean and a science teacher, a series of meetings investigating Academic Integrity for 11 Upper School faculty members
Co-adviser for eleven 10th grade students
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Implemented Standards Based Grading in my calculus courses.
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had 123 students take it (from around a dozen two years ago to 116 last year)
Participated in a regular meeting with math teacher colleagues on Geometer’s Sketchpad
2009/10
Faculty representative on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (This is the most rewarding thing I do outside of the classroom.)
Adviser for ten 10th grade students
Co-adviser for Math Club. The major pushes this year have been math competitions. We promoted a new math competition — the New York Math League — and significantly increased the number of students taking the American Math Competition from around a dozen or so in years past to 116 this year!
On the hiring committee for an Upper School math teacher
Designed and participated in an Independent Research Project with five fellow math and science, committed to discussing how to teach problem solving in the classroom.
Elected Upper School faculty representative on the Faculty and Staff Advisory Committee (FSAC) — a committee where faculty and staff can anonymously make complaints or ask questions about policies without fear of reprisal. My two year term ended.
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
2008/9
Faculty representative on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (This is the most rewarding thing I do outside of the classroom.)
Adviser for eleven 10th grade students
Adviser for Math Club
Elected Upper School faculty representative on the Faculty and Staff Advisory Committee (FSAC) — a committee where faculty and staff can anonymously make complaints or ask questions about policies without fear of reprisal
Designed and participated in an Independent Research Project with three fellow teachers, committed to investigating how the math and science curricula are aligned and misaligned. Our presentation is on this page, and our recommendations are here
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
Member of the Summer 2009 Common Read Committee (selects a book for all Upper School students and faculty to read over the summer)
Designed a Multivariable Calculus course from scratch (and taught it for the first time!). You can see the resources I’ve amassed here
Worked with fellow math teachers to re-create the scope and sequencing of the Algebra II-Precalculus sequence, including choosing new textbooks for the courses
2007/8
Co-adviser for eleven 10th grade students
Co-adviser for Math Club
Member of the Summer 2009 Common Read Committee (selects a book for all Upper School students and faculty to read over the summer)
Member on the Administrative Restructuring of the Upper School Committee
Member of the Class Dean and Assistant Head of the Upper School Hiring Committee
Advisor for nine 10th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Was a mentor and chaperone for 24 students traveling on a 10 day international trip to Lesvos, Greece to experientially learn about the ongoing refugee crisis. Additionally, planned and led pre-travel and post-travel meetings.
Organized a book club of Edwin Abbott's Flatland with six students and a second faculty member. In addition to reading and discussing the book, we also had a "movie day" where we watched the movie adaptation of the book. (We had 4 meetings.)
Organized a book club of Ben Orlin's Math Games with Bad Drawings with eight students and a second faculty member. In addition to reading and discussing half of book, we spent our meeting times playing math games. (We had 4 meetings.)
Organized a book club of Helen Benedict and Ewad Awwadawnan's Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece with two students who went on the Lesvos trip about refugees that I chaperoned, and another faculty member on the trip. (We had 1 meeting to discuss the book that we read over Spring Break.)
Organized a trip to take 10 students (who went with me on the Lesvos trip on refugees I chaperoned) and 10 faculty members to see The Jungle at St. Ann's Warehouse, a play about refugees trapped in Calais, France.
Co-organized the New York Math League Contests at Packer.
Ben Orlin's Math Games with Bad Drawings with eight students and a second faculty member. In addition to reading and discussing half of book, we spent our meeting times playing math games. (We had 4 meetings.)
Co-advised the Packer for Lesvos club, which was revived this year.
Co-advised Packer's math club.
With a colleague, revived the Math Space at Packer in the hallway outside of the math office where students could informally look at math-related books, puzzles, and various tiles to put together in various configurations.
Advised "Crafting for a Cause," which is a club where students learned to do various crafts (e.g. origami, knitting) and tied the crafts to learning about endangered species and knitting items of clothing for underserved populations.
Led an independent study with two students on chaos theory, where they improved their understanding of coding (especially making math graphics) while exploring the logistic equation and bifucation diagrams.
Organized with two other teachers a "Knitting Circle" as a "Teacher Growth Tuesday" session.
Was part of a "Teacher Growth Tuesday" group with Upper School math teachers who taught sample classes and looked at curriculum and activities together.
Encouraged particular students to submit their math exploration projects to the Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Mathematical Communication at the Museum of Math. One earned "Runner Up" status (2023) with a prize of $314.
Co-organized with another teacher the creation of a poignent and hilarious "farewell book" for a colleague leaving the Middle School after 20 years at Packer.
Wrote 24 college letters of recommendation.
2021/22
Advisor for nine 9th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Continue to advise the ninth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. The student leaders, afterr much work, decided they didn't have enough submissions to put together a journal this year.
Was part of a "Teacher Growth Tuesday" group with Middle and Upper School math teachers who read some of Yuki Hiroshi's Math Girls Talk About Integers together, as well as have conversation about our curriculum.
Created and executed my Veteran Supervision and Evaluation Observation process, which focused on observing groupwork in other disciplines, and then pivoted to creating a new structure for a groupwork activity involving "Proofs without Words" in my Advanced Precalculus class.
Wrote 7 college letters of recommendation.
2020/21
Advisor for eight 12th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Organized a book club of Anna Weltman's Supermath: The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil about the ways that mathematics shapes and is shaped by the society around us. Additionally we had the author zoom in to speak with us. Attended by five students and one additional teacher. (We had three meetings.)
Organized, with a student, a book club of Mario Livio's Is God A Mathematician? about the philosophical undergirdings of mathematics, grappling fundamentally with the question of if mathematics is discovered and invented and where (in the corporeal or world of the mind) that mathematics exists. The book club had juniors and seniors in it. (We had two meetings.)
Co-advised the Packer for Lesvos club which focused on bringing attention and spreading information about the refugee crisis in Europe, specifically focused on Lesvos. The club members created a newsletter with information about the fire in the Moria camp, how the refugee camps were dealing with COVID, and a set of resources to learn more which went out to the larger community. They also planned and executed a short-film screening of the documentary 4.1 miles as well as a discussion for over 30 students (February 2020).
Summer 2020: Participant in Change Committee, whose goal is "to diversity the curriculum and enable all of the students at Packer to be able to see themselves reflected in their classes, their curriculum, and school culture. We aim for Packer to better teach and meaningfully celebrate BIPOC experiences."
Was on the hiring committee for a (late) math department hire (Summer 2021)
Worked extensively with a student on an individual exploration of the logistic equation and bifurcation diagrams; student ended up creating a long research paper on his research summarizing his process of discovery and analysis of his results.
Continue to advise the ninth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Because of the pandemic and remote/hybrid teaching, the student leaders created a paper/digital version of the journal [PDF]
Wrote 22 college letters of recommendation.
2019/20
Adviser for eight 11th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
With a colleague, designed and created a Math Space at Packer in the hallway outside of the math office where students could informally engage with different kinds of mathematics (from browsing math books to playing math games with each other to filling in math-based coloring books)... founded with the fundamental principle "if you build it, they will come." Rotated the objects and activities in the Math Space.
Organized a book club of Amir Alexander's Infinitesimal (about the controversy over the concept of the "infinitesimial" in the tumultuous religious and political environs of 16th and 17th century Europe), attended by three students and one additional teacher. (We had three meetings.)
Organized a book club for students and faculty of E.M. Forster' Howards End with the head librarian and an English teacher. We planned this book club for students during the covid-19 quarentine, to give students something to do that was away from their laptop and phone screens. (We had two meetings.)
Organized a book club of Hannah Fry's Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms with a student in one of my classes during the covid-19 quarentine. We had two teachers and five students participate. (We had two meetings.)
Participated in a book club of Chanel Miller's Know My Name (a memoir about a sexual assault survivor) with both teachers and students.
Worked with a small group of students who went on a trip to Lesvos to learn about the refugee crisis to (a) inform our school community about the crisis and (b) hold a drive to bring much-needed supplies to Lesvos (to NGOs they contacted there). We were able to bring 3 large suitcases and around 50 two gallon ziplock bags of clothing to donate, along with a few laptops.
Was a mentor and chaperone for 24 students traveling on a 10 day international trip to Lesvos, Greece to experientially learn about the ongoing refugee crisis. Additionally, planned and led pre-travel and post-travel meetings.
Served on the Veteran Evaluation Committee for an English teacher colleague which centered around observations and pedagogical techniques.
Co-led a Packer In Action day workshop for 15 students with Teresa Genaro on "The Bechdel Test and the Male Gaze" (5 March 2020).
Continue to work with a science teacher on the eighth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Wrote 22 college letters of recommendation.
2018/19
Member of hiring committee for one Upper School math teacher opening.
Organized a book club of How Not To Be Wrong with six students.
Adviser for eight 10th grade students.
Was a mentor and chaperone for 24 students traveling on a 10 day international trip to Lesvos, Greece to experientially learn about the ongoing refugee crisis. Additionally, planned and led pre-travel and post-travel meetings.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the seventh year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with eight students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Wrote 16 college letters of recommendation.
2017/18
Was the faculty mentor for a second-year (and new to Packer) math teacher.
Organized a book read of Flatland with four students.
Organized a book read of The Man Who Knew Infinity with four students.
Revised and co-taught a two-week course titled Logging Off. The course met for six hours a day and had participants pledge to not use the Internet for the duration of the course (smartphones were collected and sealed up). By going Internet-free, students were able to reflect on how the Internet impacts their lives, and learn through readings and field trips about how the Internet is shaping the nature of what knowledge is, how information is sent and received, and how relationships are formed.
Adviser for eight 9th grade students.
College Essay Mentor for three senior students.
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded three years ago, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-or-more-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Also had Pelinomials attend the second annual Brooklyn Math Bowl, where we came in first place.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the sixth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with eight students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
Wrote 14 college letters of recommendation.
2016/17
Member of hiring committee for two Upper School math teacher openings.
Assisted in the development and co-taught a two-week course titled Logging Off. The course met for six hours a day and had participants pledge to not use the Internet for the duration of the course (smartphones were collected and sealed up). By going Internet-free, students were able to reflect on how the Internet impacts their lives, and learn through readings and field trips about how the Internet is shaping the nature of what knowledge is, how information is sent and received, and how relationships are formed.
Organized a book read of Hidden Figures for thirteen students and five faculty members. Helped student leaders be the discussion leaders in four mini-groups organized by theme (race, gender, history, literary). Also organized a pen-pal collaboration with a school in North Carolina for six students to exchange letters about their experiences with the book.
Adviser for eight 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for three seniors students
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded two years ago, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-or-more-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the fifth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
2015/16
Member of the search committee for a new Assistant Head of School and Academic Dean. All committee members took 3 days off of classes to do the interviewing.
Chaperoned a 10 day trip to the Andalucia region of Spain with over 100 tenth graders. Responsible for a group of 10 students, and co-led an "exploration team" of 16 students about architecture.
Adviser for eleven 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for three seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded two years ago, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-or-more-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Our team regularly fielded between 15 and 20 students per competition. This year we had three student leaders who we worked with to advertise and promote the team.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the fourth year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
2014/15
Adviser for eleven 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for four seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
Revised and co-taught Experimentum Crucis, a two-week course where students reproduced important science experiments which are usually held up as watershed moments in science, and put them in their historical contexts. In this course, students met for 6 hours a day, and read and discussed key primary and secondary source articles, did lab work,, and constantly asked the twin questions "What is Science?" and "How does Science change?"
Continued leading the Upper School's math team (founded in the previous year, the Pelinomials) which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Our team regularly fielded between 15 and 20 students per competition.
Designed (with another teacher) an Advanced Geometry course from scratch, by deciding the core ideas we wanted to get across, coming up with a cohesive organizational structure to suit those ideas, and writing all the curriculum and supplemental materials for the course. In addition, we inaugurated an "art and geometry exploration" that utilized extensive use of Geogebra and worked in tandem with our curriculum.
Continue to work with a science teacher on the third year of our digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills.
Mentored an 11th grade student in a year-long independent study centering around generating functions. Our core text was Hiroshi Yuki's Math Girls.
Co Adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition for all Upper School students.
Served on a faculty-student panel for the "8th Grade Upper School Night" (to tell 8th graders what the Upper School at Packer is like) [October 28, 2014]
Served on the Supervision and Evaluation committee for a veteran English teacher who wanted assistance engaging his seniors in the fourth quarter.
Served on the hiring committee for an Upper School math teacher.
Served on the Lower School Math Curriculum NYSAIS committee (for the NYSAIS accreditation report).
Served on the Middle and Upper School Math Curriculum NYSAIS committee (for the NYSAIS accreditation report)
2013/14
Awarded the Stutt Chair of Math, Science, and Technology ("awarded to a faculty member with five or more years of service to Packer in the Math, Science, or Technology departments in the Middle or Upper Schools" once every three years) [2014-2017]
Inaugurated the Upper School's first math team (the Pelinomials), which participated in Math Madness, a virtual 8-week math competition sponsored by the Mathematics Association of America. Our team usually fielded between 15 and 20 students per competition. After the competition ended, a core group of members wanted to continue meeting, so we started having weekly 7:30am practices on Friday mornings where I expose students to standard competition problems and solution techniques
Designed and implemented with another teacher Experimentum Crucis, a two-week course where students reproduced important science experiments which are usually held up as watershed moments in science, and put them in their historical contexts. In this course, students met for 6 hours a day, and read and discussed key primary and secondary source articles, did lab work, took a field trip to the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, and constantly asked the twin questions "What is Science?" and "How does Science change?"
Continue to work with a science teacher on the second year of our new digital math-science journal called Intersections. Working with six students in the creation of the journal, with an emphasis on teaching the students leadership skills
Working individually with two students exploring chaos theory through an investigation of the logistic curve. We drew connections with sequences, we used Excel to investigate the end behavior of the sequences and to graph them, we started manually generating the bifurcation diagram, and we explored cobweb plots.
Adviser for eleven 12th grade students
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had around a hundred students take it (in line with our numbers from the previous couple years).
Led a 90 minute workshop on creating an online support community with fresh Math for America teachers who were about to enter their own classroom for the first time. I did this the previous summer too — but I changed the content quite a bit this time. (The slides from this workshop are here.)
2012/13
Worked with a science teacher to create a new digital math-science journal called Intersections. Tapped four students to create the mission for the journal, and held weekly meetings with the students to develop the journal. Helped students create a presentation for the Upper School student body. (The initial idea for the journal is outlined here and the blow-by-blow about how it was created is here.)
Was a new faculty mentor for a new Upper School math teacher
Designed an Advanced Precalculus course from scratch, reorganizing the curriculum and creating new materials. The philosophy undergirding the materials is that students work in groups to collaboratively create the mathematics — where no formula is given and all concepts are developed through problems. (Examples are here and here.)
Served as a faculty representative on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee for a little over one quarter. Helped transition the new faculty advisor to lead the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (Click here to learn more about the SFJC.)
Adviser for nine 10th grade students
Part of the Scheduling Committee (a group of teachers and administrators who met for a few three hour meetings to discuss various options for changing the daily academic schedule)
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had around a hundred students take it (in line with our numbers from the previous couple years). At the end of the year, the upper school faculty members nominate and vote on one club or organization that they believe has given back to the community in a substantial way. This year math club was the recipient of the J. Geoffrey Pierson Leadership Award.
2011/12
Faculty adviser on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (The faculty advisor runs the committee, and is not just a voting member.)
Created the website for the inaugural Twitter Math Camp 2012 (TMC 12) conference; Led a workshop titled “Welcome to the Dark Side” which had participants reflect on what made their experiences on blogs and twitter positive, and what barriers they felt when joining the community (the results of this workshop informed this website I created to assist teachers in joining our online community). Slides from the workshop are here.
Was involved in a peer observation group, where teachers observed each other and had follow up conversations, and also performed video analysis of our teaching. Additionally, the group talked about creating an informal peer observation network.
Adviser for ten 10th grade students
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had 113 students take it (continuing our trend from the previous couple years).
Assisted with hiring a new Upper School math teacher and a new Upper School learning specialist
2010/11
Faculty adviser on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (This is a change from the previous two years; the faculty advisor runs the committee, and is not just a voting member.)
Planned, with a dean and a science teacher, a series of meetings investigating Academic Integrity for 11 Upper School faculty members
Co-adviser for eleven 10th grade students
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Implemented Standards Based Grading in my calculus courses.
Co-adviser for Math Club. Continued offering and promoting the New York Math League. Continued organizing the American Math Competition, and had 123 students take it (from around a dozen two years ago to 116 last year)
Participated in a regular meeting with math teacher colleagues on Geometer’s Sketchpad
2009/10
Faculty representative on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (This is the most rewarding thing I do outside of the classroom.)
Adviser for ten 10th grade students
Co-adviser for Math Club. The major pushes this year have been math competitions. We promoted a new math competition — the New York Math League — and significantly increased the number of students taking the American Math Competition from around a dozen or so in years past to 116 this year!
On the hiring committee for an Upper School math teacher
Designed and participated in an Independent Research Project with five fellow math and science, committed to discussing how to teach problem solving in the classroom.
Elected Upper School faculty representative on the Faculty and Staff Advisory Committee (FSAC) — a committee where faculty and staff can anonymously make complaints or ask questions about policies without fear of reprisal. My two year term ended.
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
2008/9
Faculty representative on the Student-Faculty Judiciary Committee. (This is the most rewarding thing I do outside of the classroom.)
Adviser for eleven 10th grade students
Adviser for Math Club
Elected Upper School faculty representative on the Faculty and Staff Advisory Committee (FSAC) — a committee where faculty and staff can anonymously make complaints or ask questions about policies without fear of reprisal
Designed and participated in an Independent Research Project with three fellow teachers, committed to investigating how the math and science curricula are aligned and misaligned. Our presentation is on this page, and our recommendations are here
College Essay Mentor for six seniors students
Member of the Excellence in Teaching Award Selection Committee
Member of the Summer 2009 Common Read Committee (selects a book for all Upper School students and faculty to read over the summer)
Designed a Multivariable Calculus course from scratch (and taught it for the first time!). You can see the resources I’ve amassed here
Worked with fellow math teachers to re-create the scope and sequencing of the Algebra II-Precalculus sequence, including choosing new textbooks for the courses
2007/8
Co-adviser for eleven 10th grade students
Co-adviser for Math Club
Member of the Summer 2009 Common Read Committee (selects a book for all Upper School students and faculty to read over the summer)
Member on the Administrative Restructuring of the Upper School Committee
Member of the Class Dean and Assistant Head of the Upper School Hiring Committee