I need to buy one, actually.
This is from the innovation space. I guess it works
well. Yeah. So what we've got with it is
pretty high quality audio, so.
I'll make you answer this again in the second because
you introduce yourself so we can get readings for sure
My name is Megan Wawro, I'm an
assistant professor in the Math Department here at Virginia Tech
blah, blah, blah. Hmmm ha ha. One more time. Hi, my name is
Megan Wawro. I am an assistant professor in the
Math Department here at Virginia Tech. Yeah, good, thank you.
I tend to not be very loud. So I have
to tell me if you want me to talk louder. It'll be okay.
Am I your last one? Um, it depends on how
the video looks once we put it together
this Sunday. That's true; that makes sense. We would like for it to be, probably won't
be the case. We'll see. We'll probably leave Dr. Norton to fill in anything. Yeah,
He's good cheerleader anyway. Okay, so I
guess we'll get started. Yeah. Okay. Could
I ask you to give us your name? Yeah is that on?
Yeah, it's on. My name is Megan Wawro.
And what is your job here at Virginia Tech? I am an
assistant professor in the Math Department here at Virginia Tech
and my research is in Math Education. How long
ago did you come to Virginia Tech? I started
in the fall of 2011. And what brought you
to Virginia Tech? Why did you decide to work
here? Yeah, that's a great question. I
think this is there's a lot of great opportunities of
what I was looking for in a place to work
and really work with students. So what drew me
to this place in particular are a few things.
One major one being that the Math Department really values
Math Education within the Math Department. And so it
was important to me to be able to really work
with students within the Math Department on how to research
learning and teaching of undergraduate students and as we learn
mathematics. Um Second, I also like that there's
a PhD program within the Math Department as well for
those interested in Math Education. So being able to
work with graduate students that are interested in the same
research is important. What's your background? Where did
you go to school? What did you study?
Yeah, my undergraduate and my masters are in Mathematics.
I went to undergrad at uh Cedarville College in
Ohio and I taught high school math after that for
three years, once in Ohio and two years overseas
in Switzerland. And then after that I went back
and got my Masters in Math at Miami of Ohio
and fell in love with teaching college while there and
decided to continue on the PhD focused on uh really
investigating how students learn in undergraduate mathematics. So I
got my PhD from a joint program in San Diego,
from the University of California, San Diego and San
Diego State University. What do you like about living
in Blacksburg? Oh, that's a great question.
Blacksburg is a fun college town in a beautiful location.
Um I think the living within the mountains is
beautiful and being able to see the changing uh seasons
is beautiful. The fall was gorgeous. After being
in San Diego and not having the fall of the year, it was great
to have it this year. And the spring was
gorgeous just now as well. And I like that
you can tell everyone here really loves the university
and loves living in town and there's a great sense
of um, camaraderie among the, not only
the college and the university and the faculty and the
students, but also the people that live within the town as well.
Could you describe the relationship between the Department of
Math and the School of Education? I
can try it from what I know. For my work
with Dr Norton, Andy Norton in the Math Department.
We worked really closely with people within the school of
education that are also doing Math Education research. So
Jay Wilkins [inaudible], Katie [inaudible]
and so for our PhD programs, we have
two different phds for within the two different universe colleges
and the students take a lot of the same courses.
So they might be the same qualitative or quantitative
methods course or maybe the same of course on learning
theories. And um, for faculty, we also
serve on each other's committees for these students. We
meet every other week to talk about the future of
the program and really see it as two programs.
Um are extremely one program where you can really focus
on two different interests and backgrounds and strengths of the
students and help mold them together and we also have
the students meet together every other week for a seminar.
So we spent a lot of time together for
sure and see it as, see it as almost
one program for sure. Are you in the department
of math at the school department about? Could you
maybe expand a little bit on her research? She
sort of told us what it generally is. Yeah,
for sure. So in general, again,
I'm interested in learning the teaching of mathematics at the
undergraduate level. So, um, anything from pre
calculus, calculus, linear algebra, abstract algebra, who
knows what those questions might be. So, my
current research is more on focus on linear algebra.
So learning and teaching linear algebra. So I've taken
part in research and still continue to do so um
called design Research. Where you go into a classroom
and you teach it in a particular way, where
you're trying to foster, you know, productive dispositions
within students, what they think math is that they
can see themselves as learners and that they really understand
the material in a certain way. So trying to
interview them and see where they're having problems with issues
going back and letting that inform your teaching. So
it's kind of a cycle between where the students are
and where you are as the teacher and playing lessons
around where they are and trying to really let the
mathematics start from where they are informally and building up
their formal understanding of mathematics from where they're starting versus
top down where the bottom of. Um, and
so we've been doing a few cycles of linear algebra
that way. And so it is involving really understanding
at a more deep level how students understand that out.
The concepts within linear algebra, but also from
that is developing new curriculum, uh, to use
within the linear. Why is Virginia tech than a
good school to do this research at? That's a
good question. I keep saying that. Um,
it's like I said before, it's nice to be
with in the Math Department. And so, um
for me, that's great because I have the
ability to already have a connection with the Math Department
where I can go in to linear algebra class and
study it because, you know, it's within my
home department. Um, and that either allows me
to work with people who already teaching that class.
I've done that some already this year Or even be
the one who is able to teach the class and
that will be doing that next year for sure.
So I think that ability to, to study the
students with my own department or even within my own
class is important. Are you currently advising any grad
students? I just, uh, well, I
don't know if advises the right word. I'm going
to have a car student, be a research assistant
for me next year David Plaxico. And so he's
gonna help me work on some of the linear algebra
stuff like, you know, continuing to adapt it
to Virginia Tech in your algebra classroom and conducting interviews
with students and continuing to work on give me the
gun. So I guess since you haven't had much
personal experience, what do you see as the relationship
between grad students and their faculty mentors? Mm um,
I think that you used a good word like
mentor is a good word for sure. I think
it's nice to be able to have them in classes
so that they can see what your research is about
as well. But also just see like you said,
like a mentor and that involves lots of things.
So not only how to be students learning about
this research, but also how to eventually become a
member of that community. So helping them learn to
read research articles and analyze them critically and how to
conduct their own research and ask good research questions and
learn about different methodologies that help them to answer that
even traveling and meeting other people within the field and
knowing how to, to meet other people and ask
about the research and share their research with others.
I think that is what I see as part of
the important relationship with God to do it. Mm
So the goal of this video is to attract quality
grad students to the program. So assuming they are
quality, they probably have offers from multiple schools.
So what would you say to one of those students
whose trying to decide between Virginia Tech and other schools
maybe get them to come here. Yeah, I
think the, the aspect of being within the math
department, if that's what you're interested in is great
because we have such a strong sense of being a
PhD program that is within the Math Department and you
can get to focus on Math Education. But on
the other hand, if you wanted, uh,
if your math background is somewhat different, you can
go through the school of education, get your PhD
that way. So I think that is nice to
have those two distinctions based on your own mathematical interest
and expertise as well. But beyond that, I
think we have a small community that's very engaged and
excited about growing the program and we've spent a lot
of time together and we enjoy working together and traveling
together. The students have great opportunities to work when
I lose with um, us and research capacities as
well as teaching capacities within the department or in the
county. I'm going out to schools if that's what
they're interested in as well. The Math Department for
sure is uh, committed to letting students travel.
So you know, that will guarantee that you can
go on to one conference a year at least for
sure. Um, we can always guarantee funding and
that's not always true for universities and the economic crisis
that's going on. So within the Math Department we
have lots of either to ships teaching calculus creek Alcor
even more Math Education related courses or even research assistantship.
So I think that for sure is a draw
that we can always take care of you financially and
really support you so that you don't have to worry
about that aspect that you can really focus on your
stuff. Do you know about how big the department
is? Like did you say how many people the
wrong person to ask? I think there are about
40 tenure track faculty in 20 to 30. Um
clinical instructors and grad student wise, I'm not sure
if I could guess within Math Education we currently have
for grad students in the Math Department and I think
five or 6 in the school, Have you done
much work in the area? Schools around Virginia Tech?
I have not, you know, like I
said, I've only been here about nine months and
the, the school of education um faculty are the
ones that definitely worked the hardest to place, you
know, perspective high school teachers into the schools to
do the student teaching and stuff, so that doesn't
necessarily fall under my purview, but mm I'm getting
there. I'm getting to know my way around a
little bit better. Yeah, for sure. What
opportunities are there for someone who gets a PhD or
a master's degree in mathematics education. Okay, uh
the first thing that comes to mind is working in
academic settings, so either one of those would definitely
still like to be a high school teacher at college
or university teaching depending on how strong your, you
know, how far you go in school and even
what degree you end up with Virginia tech definitely has
the ability to end up putting you in a top
university if you want. If you're curious and interested
in working in a large research institution, we have
currently have a recent graduate university of michigan which is
the top ranked school within mathematics and and education.
And so we definitely have the ability to to put
you out there at the top of the field if
that's what you're interested in. Let me also have
um faculty, excuse me, past students that are
interested in going back to the high school classroom or
being math supervisors for their for their county and really
taking a leadership role within their community. Um whether
that be at the high school or college level um
community college for your, so I think there's um
would be what I would say to the first one
that comes in. Um Yes, too many questions
do you have? I guess this is really generally
have anything else you'd like to say? Look I'm
just kidding. Um Not that I can think of,
you know, like I went through that too.
Okay. Mhm. No. Okay. I
think that was fast, but I think you got
everything I want to get to. I mean,
you're welcome to ask me to restate stuff if it
was weird and I think if we have any problems,
we'll get in touch with you again. That's
good. Thanks for stopping by. You're welcome.
Thank you. Very useful. Sure. Andy will
tell me to say something. We could always have
him reset, he said.