My teaching focuses on extremely active learning.

I study and share ideas on alternative grading systems:

• My book, Grading for Growth (coauthored with Robert Talbert), is available now!

• Read about my ideas on my Grading for Growth blog

• Resources for anyone interested in improving assessments

• Find many of my syllabi and standards in Rachel Weir's materials repository

• I helped found The Grading Conference, a low-cost online conference offered each summer

Recent presentations on teaching and learning:

• What do I do after the keynote? Setting yourself up for success with grading for growth. Oakland University, May 2023 (Video)

• Grading for Growth workshop, Michigan MAA meeting, Spring 2022

• Grading for Growth, Michigan MAA meeting, Spring 2021

• A quick introduction to mastery grading, Missouri Section:NExT, Fall 2019

• Improving student success through mastery grading, GVSU FTLC Fall Conference 2019

• Way to fail! Alder Award presentation, Mathfest 2018

• Supporting unconfident proof writers in IBL Euclidean Geometry. Mathfest 2018

• n Ways I've Failed at Standards-Based Grading (where n >> 0) for a Red 15 Project:NExT panel at Mathfest 2016

I am available to give keynotes, Q&A sessions, and many other types of presentations.

See my Speaking page for full details.

I study combinatorics: The art and science of counting interesting things.

Recent projects with undergraduates:

• N. Layman, "Continuous guessing games with two secret numbers" (2020 McNair Project, paper in Involve)

• S. Mancini and J. Van Hook, "Anti-Games on Steiner Triple Systems" (2017 GVSU REU Project, paper in American Mathematical Monthly)

• L. Czap, "Guessing games with cost functions" (2015-2016 GVSU Student Summer Scholars project, paper in AJUR)

• A. Dean, "An Information Theoretic Study of Rhythmic Variations of Poetic Accents in Rap" (2014 UMN senior project)

• G. Fisk and N. Goren, "A variation on the game SET" (2013, paper in Involve)

• W. Thomas, "Entanglement-Assisted Quantum Error-Correcting Codes from Generalized Quadrangles" (2012,  paper in RHUMJ)

• S. Shaker, "Noninteractive Guessing Games in Coding Theory" (2012, paper in PME)

I love to create hands-on activities that demonstrate deep ideas in simple ways.

• I am part of the senior staff at MathPath, a summer program for mathematically interested middle school students.

• I enjoy organizing and taking part in Family Math Nights at local schools.

• From 2012 -- 2014, I was a MathCEP Teaching Postdoc at the University of Minnesota. I taught Calculus to talented middle- and high-school students as a part of UMTYMP as well as running school-year and summer programs for students.

Beyond math and teaching, I also enjoy...

• Hiking and backpacking

• Photography

• Board games