Math Education Specialist
Jennifer develops and implements the Algebra21 and Geometry21 curriculum for the Center’s Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. She also works with her Center colleagues to plan experiential education programs for the Academy students and produces photo-related content for the Center.
Background
As a former classroom teacher with 14 years’ experience teaching courses from Pre-Algebra to Calculus and Pre-Engineering, Jennifer has worked in both public and independent middle and high schools in Central Connecticut. She studied Math Education at UConn and CCSU and continues to learn something new every day.
Philosophy
Jennifer loves math, really. She wants her students to love math—or at least appreciate it. That can’t happen if they don’t see it as relevant, interesting, or cool. Jen thinks school mathematics instruction needs a whole-house makeover. Students should be taught how to use the tools of the trade to handle tedious computation; then they can be asked to solve some real problems, not just contrived exercises. Technology will allow that to happen if we learn how to let it.
Professional Highlight
Jennifer attended Conrad Wolfram’s computerbasedmath.org summit in London last fall. There were 150 educators from 25 countries gathered to begin discussing the changes mentioned above—no easy answers, as you can imagine. She chose a hotel from the 1,600 hotels in London, in part because its website said that it was designed in keeping with the Golden Ratio. When she got there, the staff admitted that they did not really understand it, so she tried to explain it simply. When Jen got home, she wrote a lesson and sent it to them—now it hangs in their lobby!
Other Activities
Jennifer recently created a new kind of protractor, one that measures in radians, not degrees. She has a Trademark and a Copyright and has begun producing her ProRadian! As her family’s archivist, Jennifer scans, sorts, catalogs, organizes, and publishes all of her family’s photos. She loves the moment when she finds a hidden treasure in a long-forgotten box, like the photo of her great grandfather that her mom had never seen, or one of her teaching, back in the day.
