Teaching
Here you can find my teaching experience for the past year, along with a few examples of students comments from each semester. My teaching primarily centers the students' autonomy and focusing on building mathematical self-efficacy; you can find a more detailed description of my teaching philosophy here.
During the Summer 2022 semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to teach multivariable calculus as the instructor of record. I received the Class of 1934 Excellence in Teaching award as a result of the work my students and I did this semester. You can find a copy of the teaching evaluations I received here.
The best feature of this course was definitely the structure. I have never had a class with learning targets tested in this way, but it was extremely helpful. As someone who gets high testing anxiety, having the option to make up a learning target in office hours was extremely beneficial. I feel as though it is a very effective structure as everyone learns at a difference pace and this allowed for less stress and higher performance.
The instructor does an exception job not only getting the main concepts across, but also creating an extremely valuable support network built on collaboration and appreciating the subject matter rather than just brute forcing problems with memorized formulas and drowning in busy work.
They created a healthy learning environment for students of all levels.
During the Fall 2022 semester, I served as a teaching assistant for multivariable calculus. I have since received the 2022 Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year award coming from my efforts as a TA in the past year. You can find a copy of the teaching evaluations I received here.
Santana was a phenomenal TA and made these concepts incredibly easy to understand. They broke down traditionally difficult concepts in simple-to-understand ways. Their enthusiastic and excitement for the course made me feel more engaged and eager to learn. Not only did they prepare us for assessments, but I also felt like I genuinely learned the material in ways that werent just applicable for a grade.
I genuinely cannot say enough positive things about Santana - without a doubt the best TA Ive had while at Tech. They made attending studio always worth the time, and I always left with a better understanding and confidence in concepts. Santana was an exceptional instructor, was patient in explaining concepts, and brought a level of enthusiasm to the course that motivated me and other students to feel excited about the course and concepts.
In Spring 2023, I served as a teaching assistant for Multivariable Calculus. The Georgia Tech math department honored me with an Outstanding Evaluations award this semester. You can find a copy of the teaching evaluations I received here.
I absolutely appreciated Santana. They are truly there to help students understand and not feel the pressure of learning math. Math is tough, but Santana was amazing at explaining the concepts and answering not just the questions we asked but also the questions we meant to ask. They were great at anticipating difficulties and addressed hard concepts very well.
Santana was a wonderful TA and made studio so much better and helped me learn more about the topics each week. I really loved their enthusiasm about teaching us things about math in the real world and how to help us be better humans in the world.