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I think the great thing about having students
who have really deep knowledge of math and

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science in these classes is that they draw
upon that in the way that they think about

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math and science. So it's not just about math
that, you know, happens in a textbook that

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lives on a piece of paper, but math that's
embodied in engineering, math that's embodied

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in their lives, math that they can kind of
think about in interesting and different ways.

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Same with science, you know, it's about science
in practice that they may have done from a

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UROP on campus, or from some other experience
that they've had interacting with faculty

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that have done research in those areas. So
they can bring that to the classroom -- they

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can bring their own experience and their own
passion for Math and Science.

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They bring so much to the classroom. And I
don't need to sort of say like, "Well, you

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really need to understand what's great about
science before you understand how to communicate

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that to students, or to understand what's
great about... that math is a language that

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we can use in lots of ways. You need to understand
that before you can teach math." I don't need

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to do any of that for the students here, and
students who come from more diverse, sort

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of backgrounds with their own experience with
math and science do sort of need to learn

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that first. They need to understand what's
great about science; they need to understand

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how math is a language that helps us understand
the world. And so I think that if I were teaching

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in a different university, I'd probably need
to help students learn that first before they

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actually tried to convey that to their own
students, and I'm fortunate enough to not

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have to do that here.

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For most of the students, math and science
have always come really easily to them. They've

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sat in a room, someone's perhaps lectured
at them, and they've kind of gotten it. They

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can do well on the tests, and they can move
on. And, sometimes it's a struggle for them

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to think about, "Why... why is this student
not getting it? You know, the teacher told

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it to them just like they told it to me, and
yet I understood it and this student didn't."

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And it's a matter of trying to think about,
"How do you break that

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down to help them understand that everybody
sort of thinks about the world differently

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and thinks about their own learning differently?"
and how to accept that challenge.