some background
information on
Dr. Lawrence(Larry)
Lesser
updated May 22, 2013
EDUCATION
precollegiate education after 1st grade was in Houston ISD public schools, including Bellaire HS
B.A.
(1986) in Mathematics
/ Mathematical Sciences from Rice University
M.S.
(1989) in Statistics from the University of Texas at Austin
Also did all UT coursework for a statistics PhD
and have credit for Society of Actuaries' Exams 100,110,120 (i.e., Course
1, plus 35 prof. dev. units)
Ph.D. (1994) in Mathematics Education
from the University of Texas at Austin
Click HERE
for a list of selected papers (many with direct links),
click HERE for some
abstracts of papers, or click HERE for a
2-page overall vita.
My research program is
situated in mathematics education and includes a specialized focus on
statistics education, an area still rapidly growing in size and importance with
the ever-increasing need for all citizens to gain statistical literacy,
reasoning and thinking in our information age.
Because mathematics and statistics have been shown to be frequently
associated with anxiety, difficulty, and disinterest among secondary and
postsecondary students, and because of the extra responsibility of making sure
that the pre-service and in-service teachers we teach will not reinforce
negative attitudes, the driving interest behind my research has been to develop
and assess ways to make mathematics/statistics more intuitive, engaging, and
meaningful to students. Over my career,
my
statistics/mathematics education scholarship has clustered into foci of engagement, teacher knowledge, intuition, and curriculum, and
equity.
I’ve long been intrigued by what students find intuitive and
counterintuitive. My dissertation
articulated a framework for the selection and role of counterintuitive
introductory statistics scenarios that motivate and engage the intuition and
serve as rich vehicles for multiple representations/perspectives. In subsequent empirical survey research
(published in Teaching Statistics
twice and in Induzioni),
I found that college students starting an introductory statistics course showed
highly significant positive correlation between interest in and surprise with
respect to true statistical statements in lay language. This result suggests that counterintuitive
scenarios such as Simpson’s Paradox may motivate more than they demoralize, and
these ideas also relate to my involvement in a recent NSF CCLI
grant in engineering education, which led to a major paper (that won the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning Award given at the 2012 International Sun Conference
on Teaching and Learning) in Journal of
Statistics Education: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v19n3/lesser.pdf. I have also explored the intuitiveness or counterintuitiveness of several particular scenarios/topics
such as one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), disjunctive event probability
(e.g., how many people it takes to have at least a 50% chance of at least 2
people in the room being born on the same day of the year), weighted averages
(e.g., the ambiguity of finding ‘average class size’), and Simpson’s Paradox
(i.e., a comparison can be reversed upon aggregation; understanding this phenomenon
is listed by the National Council on Education and the Disciplines (2001) as an
essential for citizenship, and plays a big role in understanding observed
association between variables).
My 2001 NCTM Yearbook
chapter on multiple representations
(of Simpson’s Paradox) has recently received a fresh wave of attention, as
evidenced by its being listed in several years (e.g., www.statlit.org/StatLit2009.htm)
as the second-most downloaded article out of the hundreds on the world’s
premier statistics literacy website.
Examining the role of multiple representations supports not only the
newest standard of NCTM (2000) but also recommendations for teaching English
language learners. I have also published
refereed research papers (e.g., in Psychology of
Mathematics Education – North America Proceedings and in Texas
Mathematics Teacher) on issues related to choosing a sequence of
representations.
Since
2006, one of my biggest research projects has been an exploration of issues English language learners encounter in
learning statistics. The first stage of
this research, a case study of pre-service teachers conducted with Illinois State’s Matthew Winsor, is
published in the November 2009 issue of Statistics
Education Research Journal (a top-tier research journal with a 10%
acceptance rate) and quantitative followup work with
Amy Wagler, a colleague in linguistics, and a master’s thesis advisee has been
accepted in this same journal. Other
work involving several other undergraduate and graduate students is in progress
and/or under review. The ELL research is
situated in a larger scholarly focus I have on equity issues.
Another
recent major research project (we published in Journal
of Mathematics Education Leadership) used mixed methods and item
analysis to explore connections between student
knowledge and teacher knowledge with a group of middle school teachers in a
sustained professional development project funded by a Texas Education Agency
grant I was awarded (with Mourat Tchoshanov) and extensions of this work were
published in Educational Studies in
Mathematics. Other papers have
explored other aspects of middle school teacher background, including TPACK
(e.g., http://iase-web.org/documents/papers/sat2009/5_1.pdf)
and self-efficacy (in press in Journal of
Psychoeducational Assessment).
My scholarship on engagement in mathematics/statistics
classrooms includes not only conceptual papers on specific modalities (mathematics
and song, statistics
and song, statistics
and magic), but also big picture overviews (e.g., http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v16n3/lesser.html)
and empirical survey research (http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v21n1/lesser.pdf)
into instructor motivations and hesitations.
My ability to write curriculum informed by the latest
education research recommendations has led to textbook writing. I co-authored the 1998 McGraw-Hill text ACT in Algebra: Applications, Concepts and
Technology in Learning Algebra, which lets applications (not definitions)
launch the mathematics, incorporates modeling and technology appropriately,
emphasizes conceptual understanding as well as computational skill, and has
realistic acknowledgement of the role of factoring-dependent methods. In
2007, I was invited to succeed former ASA president (and Founder’s Award
winner) David S. Moore on
the distinguished Freeman/COMAP author team to prepare the 8th
edition and the (current) 9th
edition of the applied math-for-liberal-arts textbook For All
Practical Purposes and I was given sole responsibility
for its four statistics chapters.
Much of my research and scholarship connects to grants. I am PI of NSF TUES (and before that, CCLI)
Type 1 grant proposals, including Project
UPLIFT (a 2-year grant that began August 2012) that aims to yield
research-based classroom-tested items that make statistics class more engaging.
My past research in the area of standards and alignment led to my being PI of a
2008 award from the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board to co-chair a Statewide Discipline-Based
Vertical Team conducting gap analysis between the Texas Essential Knowledge
and Skills and the Texas College
Readiness Standards and I was invited to present the findings as an invited
featured solo presentation at the 2008 Charles A.
Having spent most of my
career in departments of mathematical sciences, I am in many ways a
“mathematical scientist’s math educator.”
Part of this refers to my strong mathematics/statistics content
background/experience, which includes all coursework for a statistics PhD and
work experience beyond academia as a statistician (which informs my article in
the October 2012 Mathematics Teacher,
for example) before I entered the mathematics education PhD program. Also, my strong content roots have clearly
flavored my scholarship in terms of my instinct and passion for rigor,
aesthetics, optimizing, parsimony, discovery, merging or creating areas, etc.
Mathematics or statistics content has frequently informed the development of my
research questions in mathematics/statistics education. Along the way, I have made contributions to
“mathematical knowledge for teaching” (Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004), a
specific aspect of mathematics content that would be useful in a classroom situation
– such as my NCTM Yearbook chapter on multiple representations of (and the
smallest dataset exhibiting) Simpson’s paradox, my Mathematics Teacher paper that models the Birthday Problem, my Teaching Statistics paper offering (with
proof) the smallest simple dataset that yields distinct basic summary
statistics, my 2010 Mathematics Teacher
paper on average class size which includes proofs of special cases and more
general mathematical conjectures, and my co-authored PRIMUS paper on a number theory result sparked by exploring
fraction arithmetic. I have written with distinguished mathematical scientists
(e.g., textbook with COMAP authors; several papers with statisticians (e.g.,
Dennis Pearl, Amy Wagler, Mark Glickman, etc.), a paper with mathematician Joe
A. Guthrie, and I now have a couple of pathways with 4 as my Erdös number.
The above paragraph notwithstanding, I can also be
described as having a liberal arts sensibility, beyond co-authoring a major
liberal arts math textbook (For All
Practical Purposes). In addition to
conducting various empirical quantitative/qualitative studies, I research ways
to make mathematics/statistics more meaningful to students (and connected to
the educational environment), using the depth and breadth of my background to
find or make bridges between the literatures of mathematics, statistics,
mathematics education, statistics education, and a variety of other realms
(e.g., lotteries, music, ethics, social justice, culture/ethnomathematics,
and diversity). These papers, especially
in subareas where there is little prior work, are often integrative syntheses
or critical reviews of a theoretical, foundational, developmental,
philosophical or historical/cultural nature.
My scholarship has spilled over into creative published forms such as
songs, poems, humor, and appearances on radio/TV. This interdisciplinary sensibility often
leads to my publishing the first and/or most definitive/comprehensive articles
(see list of papers)
on several particular intersections of topics, including: statistics
education and English language learners, multiple representations
and Simpson’s Paradox, statistics
education and philosophical ethics, statistics
education and social justice, Jewish
culture and (ethno)mathematics, mathematics
and song, statistics
and song, statistics
and magic, statistics
education and fun, and statistics
and mnemonics. Co-authors of my
papers span many disciplines besides mathematics/statistics education,
including: mathematics, statistics, linguistics, philosophy, psychology,
sociology, and business administration.
I’ve had
refereed/peer-reviewed papers accepted in a variety of highly-selective (with
acceptance rates as low as 10%) and selective juried research publications
(e.g., Statistics Education Research
Journal, Proceedings of the
International Conference on Teaching Statistics, Journal of Statistics
Education, Journal of Mathematics Education Leadership, Adults
Learning Mathematics International Journal, Proceedings of the North-American Psychology of Mathematics Education
conference, Proceedings of the
International Association of Statistical Education satellite conference, Journal
of Mathematics and Culture, Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, Journal
of Psychoeducational Assessment, Journal for Critical
Education Policy Studies, and the NCTM Yearbook) as well as in a
variety of periodicals designed to reach a larger audience that includes
non-researcher educators (e.g., Teaching Statistics, Primus, Mathematics Teacher, ON-Math:
Online Journal of School Mathematics, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle
School, Statistics Teacher Network, Stats, Spreadsheet User, Technological Horizons in
Education Journal, Notices of the North American Study Group in Ethnomathematics, and North America’s most widely-read pedagogical periodical, The
Teaching Professor). I’ve
also had academic chapters in two books published by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics and in two books published by Rowman
and Littlefield.
Click HERE for a near-complete list of papers (many with direct links), click HERE for some abstracts of papers, or click HERE for a 2-page overall vita.
CITATIONS There
are 170+ instances where other scholars (it would be a lot more by including
self-citations) have cited one of my papers one or more times in one of their
papers. These citations span several theses/dissertations,
books (e.g., the 2008 MAA book Calculation vs. Context: Quantitative
Literacy and its Implications for Teacher Education, the 2008 Springer-Verlag book Developing Students' Statistical Reasoning:
Connecting Research and Teaching Practice, the 2009 Wiley-Blackwell book A Guide to Teaching Statistics: Innovations
and Best Practices, the 2010 Wiley
book Teaching Psychology in Higher Education, the 2010 Stylus
Press book Social Justice Education:
Inviting Faculty to Transform Their Institutions, the 2011 ICMI Study Series, the 2012 Springer
book Becoming a Mathematician: An
International Perspective, the 2013 Springer book Third International Handbook of Mathematics Education), major
websites (e.g., www.statlit.org), and 60+ periodicals, including (in
alphabetical order): American Biology
Teacher, Arthuriana, Boletín de Estadística e Investigación
Operativa, Choice,
Communication Teacher, Computers in the Schools, Decision Sciences Journal of
Innovative Education, Educational Studies in Mathematics, Educationist, Epsilon
(Revista de Educación Matemática), European Journal of Training and Development,
Gamma, Geombinatorics, Humor: International Journal
of Humor Research, Informatics and Information Technologies in Education
[Theory, Applications, Didactics: Proceedings of the National Workshop],
International Journal for Studies in Mathematics Education, International
Journal of Critical Pedagogy, International Journal of Computer Algebra in
Mathematics Education, International Journal
of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, International Journal of
Science and Mathematics Education, Journal of Computers in Mathematics and
Science Teaching, Journal of Educational
Research in Mathematics, Journal of Educational Technology Systems, Journal of
Information Technology Education, Journal of LGBT Youth, Journal of
Mathematical Modelling and Application, Journal of
Mathematics and the Arts, Journal of
Mathematics and Culture, Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College,
Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Journal of Statistics
Education, Journal of the Learning Sciences, MAA Loci: Convergence, Mathematics
Teacher, Mathematics Teaching-Research Journal, Model Assisted Statistics and
Applications, Numeracy, Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning in Higher Education, Primary-Online, Primus, Procedia
(Social and Behavioral Sciences), Proceedings of Australia Conference on
Teaching Statistics, Proceedings of the Academic and Business Research
Institution International Conference, Proceedings of the Congress of the
European Society for Research in Mathematics Education, Proceedings of the
International Conference on Mathematics Education & Society, Proceedings of
the International Conference on Teaching Statistics, Proceedings of the SOBIE
(Society of Business, Industry and Economics), Proceedings of the World
Congress of the International Fuzzy Systems Association, Radical Statistics, Revista de Formación e Innovación
Educativa Universitaria,
Statistics Education Research Journal, Statistics Teacher Network, Stochastik in der Schule,
Syllabus, Teaching and Teacher Education, Teaching for Excellence and Equity in
Mathematics, Teaching Statistics, Technological Innovations in Statistics
Education, The Journal of Education for Business, The Mathematics Educator, The
(Montana) Mathematics Enthusiast, and Transportation
Research Record.
My 95+ presentations at national/international conferences include the International Conference on Teaching Statistics, the United States Conference on Teaching Statistics, International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Mathematical Association of America (winter & summer meetings), North American chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Association for Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, Joint Statistical Meetings (American Statistical Association), International Conference on Education, Labor & Emancipation, Conference on Math Education and Social Justice, Lineae Terrarum: International Borders Conference, Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, Working Class/Poverty Class Academics Conference, the Sun Conference on Teaching and Learning, the Advanced Placement Conference, Research Council on Mathematics Learning, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Research Presession. The most exotic place I’ve presented was probably Marrakesh, Morocco, where my ICOTS talk was translated in real time over headphones into French (and I gave an invited paper at 2010 ICOTS in Ljubljana, Slovenia!). I have given invited featured plenary presentations at national, regional, and local meetings, including the opening plenary speaker for the 2009 NCTM regional conference in Nashville and the featured banquet presenter at the 2013 United States Conference on Teaching Statistics and the Mathematical Association of America’s 2008 MathFest. I’ve given 50+ presentations (including 9 plenary/keynote talks) at regional/statewide conferences (including Western Statistics Teachers' Conference, Georgia Mathematics Conference, California Mathematics Council Community Colleges South, Regional National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conferences, Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching, Bilingual Educators Emphasizing and Mastering Standards conference, Mathematical Association of America, and Teachers Teaching with Technology, and the Charles A. Dana Center’s Annual Mathematics and Science Higher Education Conference). I have also given invited colloquium talks at schools and universities (e.g., University of Arizona) in over a dozen states and even overseas (the Technion in Haifa, Israel). During my time at AASU, I also gave several university-wide presentations (e.g., President's Symposium on Teaching and Learning, Robert Ingram Strozier Faculty Lecture Series, Scholarship of Teaching RoundTable, Women's Studies Conference). Overall, my presentations have spanned many areas/topics, including: mentoring new teachers, education outreach, mathematics and music/song, mathematics/statistics and philosophy (including ethics), mathematics history, multiculturalism/diversity/gender equity, using the Internet, using mass media, standards-based mathematics and technology, assessment, goals of statistics education, algebraic reasoning in statistics, line of fit, student-collected data, capture/recapture methods, mathematics and science connections, careers in statistics, constructivism, misconceptions, counterintuitive examples, collaborative learning, qualitative research, algebra reform, conceptual understanding of functions, and multiple representations.
My scholarship and research background has naturally guided my service to the profession, including: service as a founding Editor of Teaching for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics (national journal of the NCTM affiliate TODOS: Mathematics for ALL), an Associate Editor of Journal of Statistics Education (an international journal of the American Statistical Association), an Associate Editor of Journal of Mathematics and Culture (international journal of the North American Study Group on Ethnomathematics), an Associate Editor of Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, an Editor of Noticias de TODOS: News from TODOS Mathematics for All, and an Editorial Board member of Texas Mathematics Teacher (Texas-wide refereed journal of Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics). In 2013, I began doing Assistant Editor work for the top-tier journal in statistics education: Statistics Education Research Journal. Also, I have done invited refereeing of papers for other journals (e.g., Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Statistics Education Research Journal, Journal of Statistics Education, Technology Innovations in Statistics Education, Mathematics Teacher, and Teaching Statistics) and conferences (e.g., Psychology of Mathematics Education North American conferences and the International Conference on Teaching Statistics). I have also served on program and other committees for various national or regional mathematics/statistics/education conferences (e.g., USCOTS, MAA, NCTM, Western Statistics Teachers' Conference, "Transitions in Qualitative Inquiry" seminar series) and (through a national election) am serving a 3-year term (2011-2013) as Publications Chair for the Statistical Education Section of the American Statistical Association. I was also chosen to serve a term (2011-2014) on the Professional Development Services Committee of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. I was deeply honored to be recognized as a finalist for the 2001 Gladys M. Thomason Distinguished Service Award by the Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics based on “distinguished service in the field of mathematics education at the local, regional, and state levels,” to receive a certificate of appreciation from TODOS founding President Miriam Leiva for “Exemplary contributions as a leader in TODOS: Mathematics for All 2006-07,” and to receive plaques in 2006 and 2010 from GEPCTM (Greater El Paso Council of Teachers of Mathematics) recognizing my “support and promotion of high-quality mathematics teaching and ongoing professional development throughout the preparation and careers of teachers of mathematics.” I served (2005-2009) on the RAB (Research Advisory Board) of CAUSE (Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education), have been mentoring local and non-local early-career researchers, served on the Program Committee of USCOTS 2007 (United States Conference on Teaching Statistics), and have been co-coordinating a “Fun” Resources Page and associated bi-annual national contest for CAUSEWeb. On the state level, I did invited service in 2008 as faculty chair of a Statewide Discipline-Based Vertical Team on college readiness for the THECB and the TEA. At UTEP, my service activities have included chairing the UTEP Museum Committee (for 3 years), editing the math department’s annual newsletter (MAXIMA, 2005–present), chairing the mathematics education PhD proposal program committee, and chairing the Mathematics Education Search Committee (which yielded the successful hire of the now-tenured Kien Lim).
TEACHING & RELATED EXPERIENCE
Through my education, my interest in
mathematics was developed by involvement in extracurricular mathematics
activities, including UIL
Number Sense, Mu Alpha Theta, Atlantic Region Mathematics League (I competed
at this national meet as a member of the Texas delegation), and Putnam exams (scoring as high as the
70th percentile nationwide). I learned there's much mathematics beyond
our textbooks and that "recreational mathematics" is not an
oxymoron! I was fortunate to have many excellent professors in
college (e.g., Dr. Richard Tapia)
who helped prepare me and inspire me to pursue graduate work. In my own
teaching today, I strive similarly to give students high levels of challenge
and support, broaden their view of how mathematics/statistics connects to other
areas, and give them a view of how mathematics/statistics is done by real
people in real life!
In graduate school, I took the usual “pure
math” courses in analysis, topology and abstract algebra before taking my first
statistics class, which fed my passion to use my mathematical background in a
more applied way. I proceeded to earn a masters' degree in statistics,
work as a statistical consultant on a test-equating psychometrics project with Carl
Morris, teach (and coordinate) statistics for UT business majors, pass
some actuary exams, and work for a couple of years as the sole staff
statistician for the Texas Legislative Council
(I helped research and implement methodology to estimate racial bloc voting for
the redistricting
project, a real-world experience of using mathematics outside academia that
has given my classroom teaching additional authenticity). The
professional tutoring I had done for a private company and various university
departments and the non-tenure-track university teaching I was doing [by the
time I earned my PhD, I had taught 16 classes -- mathematics and statistics,
upper & lower-division -- at St.
Edward's University (a Carnegie Master’s comprehensive Univ. II in Austin
of 3000 students), Southwestern University
(a baccalaureate liberal arts college in Georgetown, TX of 1200), and the University of Texas at Austin (a Carnegie Doct./Research Univ. Extensive of 50,000)] helped me
realize that, while I greatly enjoyed acquiring my solid background in
mathematics and statistics content, I had still greater talents, interests and
calling in the areas of curriculum and instruction, finding ways to make
important content more accessible and interesting. (an
aside: be open not only to the possibility that your direction may
evolve, but also to the idea that what you learn now may be useful later in
unexpected ways!) I then pursued a PhD in Mathematics Education under
Ralph Cain with the distinguished committee of Ray Carry, Charles Lamb, Maggie
Myers, and Mary Parker, and
with valuable encouragement from statistics educator (whose distinctions now
include ASA Fellow, ASA Founders Award, and USCOTS Lifetime Achievement Award) Joan Garfield
as well. I was the first student in the program to declare a
specific focus (in terms of both dissertation and supporting coursework) in
statistics education. It was (and still
is) an exciting time for involvement in the areas of statistics education and
mathematics education, which are growing rapidly, along with their overlap, and
I’ve been able to be part of a “bridge” by remaining engaged with both fields
and their literatures (e.g., I’ve published in ASA journals, NCTM journals, and
joint ASA-NCTM journals!).
In 1993, a UT adult education course I
created and taught on the psychology and probability underlying the
then-months-old Texas Lottery attracted
extensive media
coverage - from a story
spanning 37 column inches in the August 28 Austin American-Statesman
all the way to the lead "Dollars and Sense" segment throughout that
weekend's Cable News Network (CNN) Headline News! (Subsequent
stories have often accompanied the times lotteries begin new games or amass
particularly big jackpots, including interviews by
After my PhD, I began teaching and
developing/reforming numerous courses (in statistics & statistics
education, math & math education, math history, and research methodology)
as an Assistant Professor for the mathematical
sciences department of the University of
Northern Colorado (a Carnegie Doctoral/Research extensive University of
10,000 students an hour north of Denver). While at UNC, I worked with middle/secondary
in-service teachers, helped coordinate seminars & conferences, and
supervised tutors, student teachers, undergraduate research and doctoral
dissertations. As a key member of the Educational Mathematics
PhD program, one of my accomplishments was developing doctoral courses such
as one in qualitative research methods in math education. I was a faculty
content person in the "NEXT STEP: K-12 and Higher Education Working
Differently and Together" grant (funded by the CCHE) to explore
creating a seamless K-16 standards-based alignment between high school exit
standards and college entrance standards. I also taught and redesigned courses
for pre-service and in-service teachers as part of the Rocky
Mountain Secondary Teacher Enhancement Initiative in Mathematics and Rocky
Mountain Teacher Education Collaborative NSF grants. As a member of the
first year’s team for the competitively-selected CCHE-funded Educational Technology Improvement Project
(1995-2000) at UNC, I gained experience in developing and implementing
standards, performance-based assessments and rubrics (just as most states’ K-12
schools have been required to implement) and was the first at UNC to integrate
sustained, standards-based technology and reformed curriculum into the
multi-section introductory statistics course. I was also active in the
Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics (e.g., presentations and committee
work for state & regional conferences), and was Vice-Chair of UNC's
Professional Education Council. At UNC,
I also did some administrative-type work such as coordinating multi-section
introductory statistics courses, a university-wide tutoring lab, and programmatic
assessment reports, and I have done some of this at other institutions as well.
In 1999, I began an Associate Professor
position in the Department of
Mathematics at Armstrong Atlantic
State University (a comprehensive Carnegie Master's University I of
5500 students in the University System of Georgia)
to renew and broaden further my mathematics education background, especially into
the elementary school curriculum -- not only by teaching courses for
pre-service elementary school teachers, but also by spending significant time
in some local schools (from suburban to urban, such as Savannah's East
Broad Street ES, where I spent 50+ hours), observing and working with
several in-service teachers and teaching some lessons myself. I also
worked with in-service teachers as part of an Eisenhower grant and delivered
in-service teacher training workshops -- for individual schools as well as for
larger educational organizations such as the AASU/Chatham County Public Schools
Partnership Board, the Lowcountry Math and Science
Hub, and even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
& Museum! Also, I spent two of my five Armstrong years
on special leave to strengthen my secondary mathematics education experiential
base by working as a full-time high school math teacher (and department
chair) at Emery HS. Emery’s
advisory activities, outdoor learning, field trips, and strong community
service component/mission gave me deeper insight into how to support and
motivate “the whole person.” My
experience there teaching a range of students (e.g., from the 35th
to the 99th percentiles) and courses (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra
II, Precalculus, Calculus) greatly enhanced my
subsequent work with pre-service and in-service teachers.
In 2004, I accepted an Associate Professor
position in the Department of Mathematical
Sciences at The University of Texas at El
Paso (an emerging national research university of 22,000 students) to
have more opportunity for research and collaboration – with a critical mass of
talented mathematics educators and science educators, statisticians and
mathematicians in rich cultural and natural environments. During my tenure here as an Associate
Professor – and now, Full Professor -- I’ve also enjoyed record opportunities
to team teach in classroom and in field-based settings (e.g., an integrated
block with COE faculty for UTEP pre-service teachers at Canutillo ES) as well as to co-write
papers and grants. UTEP is a
research-intensive doctoral university (the country’s only one with a
Mexican-American majority student population) that started in 1914 and now has
some 22,000 students and 1,000 faculty.
UTEP is part of the University of
Texas System (the nation’s second largest university system), where I began
my teaching career in the 80’s! Another
attraction is that I have family and familial education roots in this western
tip of Texas, including relatives who attended UTEP and had distinguished
teaching service for El Paso Community College,
El Paso ISD (while at Zach White Elementary, my great aunt Matilda
was a teacher of the year, and later organized the first education scholarship
at UTEP for future teachers: the Matilda Amstater Shanblum Future Teacher Scholarship Fund), and a religious dayschool in El Paso.
My interactive, integrated style aims to give students
of diverse backgrounds high levels of support and worthwhile challenge, to
broaden their view of how real people do (and teach) mathematics that often
connects to other areas, and to enhance their quantitative literacy. While
my students do not always declare mathematics to be their favorite subject,
they universally acknowledge that my enthusiasm and approachability makes the
class a “safe environment” and allows them to experience greater enjoyment,
interaction, meaning, and learning than they often had in prior mathematics
classes. I appropriately draw from a
broad pedagogical repertoire that includes manipulatives,
technology (ranging from the Internet to EXCEL to data-collection devices),
mass media, multiple representations, writing, traditional and alternative
assessment, standards-based education, math history, equity/diversity
awareness, cooperative learning activities, real-world applications and
connections, literature, problem solving, student-collected data and the
occasional mathematical magic trick or math song! I have done outreach events such as Pi Day
educational events (at elementary, middle, and high schools), adult education
classes in lottery
literacy, and lessons for radio and TV! The following representative recent sample
of narrative comments [taken from end-of-course evaluations from pre-service
elementary teachers] show that I offer experiences that were both challenging
and engaging: “I really liked that Dr. Lesser used various manipulatives,
integrated other subjects with mathematics such as social studies, sang songs
to us about mathematical concepts, related math to current events such as the
presidential election, he also challenged us and had high expectations of his
students.” “Very positive attitude and motivated us every class meeting.” “Made us think – that’s a good thing J” “The instructor’s style is
very unique. He is always looking for
things that make class fun, interesting AND educational.” “The assignments have
been challenging and fun. He makes us
look forward to seeing if our answers or assumptions were right or wrong.” My scholarship on engagement and my ability
to write curriculum informed by the latest education research recommendations
has led to major textbook writing projects, as noted in the scholarship
section of this webpage.
My
teaching innovations have resulted in
recognitions from my institution and beyond. I was selected to serve as AASU's 2001
university-wide Arthur M. Gignilliat, Jr. Professor (AASU’s premier
competitive faculty development award for innovative teaching). And I was
selected as an IMPACT
Fellow for the 2005-06 school year under the NSF ADVANCE Institutional
Transformation for Faculty Diversity grant at UTEP to play a leadership
role in developing new ways of integrating teaching, research and service. I was appointed in 2008 (representing the
College of Science) to serve a 3-year term on the university-wide CETaL Council
of Fellows. I was featured by my university to launch a podcast series (mine was on classroom voting) and was
featured in the first Fall 2012 issue of CETAL’s The Teaching Spotlight. Also,
I had a piece
published in the November 2010 issue of North America’s most widely-read
pedagogical periodical for professors, The
Teaching Professor. Finally, I
received the 2010 Distinguished College
or University Teaching of Mathematics award of the Southwestern Section of the
Mathematical Association of America, a 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching from the UTEP College
of Science, a 2011 UT System Regents’ Outstanding
Teaching Award, two first-place recognitions in the 2011 national
“Quantitative Literacy in the Media” contest sponsored by QL-SIGMAA,
and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award at the 2012 International
Sun Conference on Teaching and Learning. Currently, I am UTEP’s sole nominee to
be named one of Texas’ ten recipients of the 2013
Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award (to be announced May 1).
PERSONAL BACKGROUND
I grew up in Houston and have also lived in
Austin, Greeley (CO), Savannah (GA), and now El Paso. Several Texas
educators are in my family tree, such as my late grandmother Julia Lesser
(who taught mathematics with distinction for over 25 years in the Fort Worth
public schools; a former student of hers recently wrote my dad: “Your mother taught the girls we could be savvy in math
right alongside the boys…your mother opened up the ordered universe for us. I
can still see the chalk flying when she hit the board in a frenzy of
excitement…..”) and her late sister Sadie Streusand (a teacher and counselor in the
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