History of Math - The Podcast

In my second semester of teaching history of mathematics I discovered that podcasts are not "just for old people" as my friends have led me to believe. Many of my students listen to podcasts regularly and that sparked an idea. During this past fall semester of 2019 the students did research on mathematicians (and scientists, and engineers, and astronomers, and ...) both from the book we use and from a list of mathematicians I sourced outside of the book. As the book is heavy on the men of mathematics and especially European men of mathematics, the list I made was heavy on women and other underrepresented groups of mathematicians.

The results were amazing! The students did a great job on the research, providing sources and hitting the highlights outlined by the rubric they were given. Four of my students from this semester ended up recording some episodes of the podcast with me. Currently the production is out of my hands and in the very capable ears of the tech team at UTEP Creative Studios. This coming new year I will be publishing the podcasts here and on several other sites as well. All research and resources will be available as well.

Thoughts on a new session

Tomorrow the first summer session starts at DACC. I will be teaching a couple of classes but I am only going to talk about one today. The class is Applied Calculus for Business and Management Sciences. As I get ready for any new semester or session I like to think about my overall semester goals. You would think they might be the same every semester but there always is some variation. This class will have 13 students and we meet four days a week for 5 weeks.

One of the students took Intermediate Algrbra from me in the fall. He's a nontraditional student, retired police officer, sits front row, and asks questions when he has them. Another student emailed and asked if she can bring her 10 year old to the first two classes as her childcare fell through. She planned ahead, I like that. I plan to remind my students, this session and all future semesters, that child care is not a reason to skip class. Generally if you ask first your professor will allow you to bring your kid unless school rules or material for that day prohibit their attendance. I've had to take my kids to class also, life happens. My daughter sat quietly and took notes, telling me later that she thought it was cool that she was learning the same stuff as my college students. My son won't stay quiet. He answers questions before my students have a chance. He doesn't come with me anymore.

Enough of the side stories, back to the main topic: goals for this class. My umbrella goal is to show these students that they are capable. That's it, simple right? Capable of what you might ask. Showing them that they are capable learners is more important to me than being mathematically capable. Hopefully by learning to be capable learners it will translate to being more than capable at math and many other subjects as well. None of these students are math or science majors, most do not even enjoy math. If I can help them to learn how to learn, the world is open.

Welcome to Math with Tuesday - The Blog

My name is Tuesday J. Johnson and I am a full-time lecturer at the University of Texas - El Paso (UTEP) and an Assistant Professor at Doña Ana Community College (DACC). I have been teaching for over twenty years, more than thirty if you count the friends I helped through high school and college.

My students always ask, "Why math?" The basic answer is because it was easy. The full answer is not very different. I grew up in a small town in North Idaho called Plummer. We had 25 students in our graduating class. Yep, twenty-five. As a small-town kid I played sports, was in the band, and went to school everyday. I am an athlete. I am a drummer. I dabble with being a musician as well; playing guitar, writing songs, a little bit of piano, some alto sax, and I've played with a clarinet a few times. Just dabbling, I'm a drummer. Since I wanted to play music and sports, I had to show up. Also, in rural Idaho, going to school is the best way to hang out with your friends. I'm not saying what we did in school was always right, or even legal, but we showed up and put forth some effort. As I progressed through the years I found that math made sense to me. It was easy for me so I helped my friends. They found my explanations helpful and more people asked for help. I enjoyed helping them enough to give up my rock star dreams and go into teaching, primarily so I could coach. What should I teach? Why not math?

At Lewis-Clark State College (LCSC) I majored in math with an eye toward secondary education. Fortunately I had a practicum early in that program and realized high school was not where I wanted to be. Working in the math tutoring center, a cell in the bowels of Meriwether Lewis Hall, I honed my tutoring/teaching craft while working with some life-long friends. I thought about going into the Air Force after college, proudly scoring in the 97th percentile on the pilot/navigator section, but I didn't want to write a resume by hand so I decided to apply to graduate schools. Stupid, yes, but I was young and it seems to have worked out in the end for me.

I did have several options when it came to graduate math programs but I settled on New Mexico State University (NMSU) for a variety of reasons. Top most on that list was over 300 sunny days a year. Growing up in the the snowy Pacific Northwest made those days of sunshine too appealing to turn down; the program at NMSU was pretty good too, but it wasn't the main deciding factor. At NMSU I fell in love with teaching again and have never looked back. The ladies of the Math Learning Center, as it was called at the time, helped me gain confidence and perspective on what it meant to actually teach.

I've been very fortunate to have taught at NMSU, Broome Community College in Binghamton, NY, and now at both DACC and UTEP. The students, other people, and things I have learned at each of these schools have shaped who I am as an educator today.

That's me in a nutshell mathematically. I wake up every morning excited to go to work and share what I know with people willing to learn. I can't believe they pay me to do this! (Unless you are my boss then I am certainly due for a raise 😀.)

Welcome to my math blog.