My Two Most Memorable Teachers

My two most memorable teachers are Professor Greg Martin and another mathematics professor at UBC who do due to him/her being memorable for negative reasons shall remain unnamed.

Professor Martin is memorable to me because he always gave the impression that he truly and whole-heartedly loves the subject he is teaching and mathematics in general. He always integrated humor into his lessons and had a very student oriented approach to teaching. He made sure he put himself in our shoes and presented the material in such a way that is accessible to students seeing the material for the first time. He emphasized on problem solving techniques all the while maintaining that computational accuracy and effective problem solving are inseparable. He also had an extremely open door policy where he invites you to discuss not only material related to the course he is teaching but all mathematics in general. His enthusiasm in both mathematics and teaching have rubbed off on me and have motivated me to become just as great a teacher.

The other professor who shall remain unnamed is memorable because of the extreme coldness and acrimony he displayed to the class before really even meeting the group. His/her first comment to the class was quite boldly "hi, I am Professor So and So, and 60% of you will fail this course." He/she said it with such conviction that it was doomed to become the truth (in reality, only 54% of the class failed). Though this professor may have been speaking the truth based on statistical evidence, such a negative opening statement set the class up to fail.

In looking at the above two examples there are two extreme examples. Both individuals are truly subject matter experts in mathematics and yet due to their teaching styles and the image they project have become vastly different instructors. I hope to learn from both the enthusiasm of Professor Martin as well as the apathy of the other individual as guidelines for my own development.