Gavin's Home Page, v.5

Last year (fall 2023) I worked with our math 115 course (calculus I), teaching with four awesome graduate students as part of a pilot group-room to explore how we can improve our support of graduate students and the experience of the undergraduates in the course. I wasn't teaching this past winter (2024). The year before (fall 2022, winter 2023) I coordinated math 216, which has a public web site. This is a wonderful introductory course to ordinary differential equations. In winter 2023 I taught math 404, Intermediate Differential Equations, or, to give it a more interesting title, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. This is a tremendously fun course that is, ostensibly, a second course in ordinary (nonlinear) differential equations.

Before that (fall 2022, winter 2023) I coordinated math 216, a great introductory course in ordinary differential equations, and in winter 2022 I also taught math 404 And before that I taught more math 115 (calculus I), including two sections online in fall 2020!

In the more-or-less recent past I have taught and coordinated math 216, and other things I've taught not-so-recently include math 425 (probability), math 217 (linear algebra), math 316 (also differential equations), math 215 (calculus III), math 116 (calculus II), and math 115 (calculus I). Many, many years ago I taught courses in math modeling and other things.

The other part of my job is doing instructional technology. Officially this is 50%, and teaching the other 50%.

Some things that I think are interesting in this vein include gateway testing (we use WeBWorK) and on-line homework. I like these demonstrations for differential equations, and these Matlab labs.

There's more to say about all this; more links, mostly for internal consumption, are on our instructional technology page. If you're curious about any of that, feel free to ask.

There are a lot of other things to think about in the world of mathematics, education, and such.

I've long been a fan of writing projects (these labs are really writing projects in disguise). I co-authored a book about these at one point.

I worked with Project NExT for quite a few years. It's a fantastic MAA program for new and recent Ph.D.s in the math sciences. If that's you, you should look at it.

And on the subject of professional development, I'm involved with our new instructor training program here at Michigan, our seminar on teaching math, and Learning Community on Inclusive Teaching.

Finally, here is an index of some talks I've given recently.

And then there are other important things.

A few personal items: I did my undergraduate work at Grinnell College, a small liberal arts school in Iowa, and graduate work in applied math at Northwestern University. Determined to stay at a school with the same initials, I then taught at Nebraska Wesleyan University, in Lincoln, where at least one other university may be found. I've been known to play ultimate (in Ann Arbor!). Music is a large part of the background on which my life runs. My laptop runs Linux, most recently Arch.

Books. Everyone should read more. Recent and not-so recent things to cross my sights are J. McBride, Deacon King Kong; D. Heitner, Growing Up in Public; K. Beaton, Ducks; J. Harvey, Raising White Kids; K. Beaton, Hark! A Vagrant; D. Reinholz, Equitable and Engaging Mathematics Teaching; S. Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; D. Walton, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev; M. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough; J. Swirsky, January Fifteenth; T. Burke, Unbound; I. Kendi, How to be an Antiracist; G. Yang, Dragon Hoops; J. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings; K. Boykin, Race Against Time; G. Orwell/F. Nesti, 1984, the Graphic Novel; A. Bechtal, The Secret to Superhuman Strength; R. Zelazney, A Night in the Lonesome October; R. Rothstein, The Color of Law; M. Fukuoka, The One Straw Revolution; B. Stephenson, Just Mercy; D. Young, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker; E. Biss, On Immunity; R. McKinley, Spindle's End; G. Takei, They Called Us Enemy; J. Ottaviani, Z. Cannon, & K. Kannon, T Minus; P. Rucker & C. Leonnig, A Very Stable Genius; M. Atwood, The Handmaiden's Tale; J. Baldwin, Giovanni's Room; P. Flores-Scott, American Road Trip; S. Hottinger, Inventing the Mathematician; M. Zusak, The Book Thief; J. Boaler, Mathematical Mindsets; E. Burger & M. Starbird, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking; M. Lewis, The Fifth Risk; B. Woodward, Fear; J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter; Atul Gawande, Being Mortal; Jamil Ahmad, The Wandering Falcon; Randall Monroe, What if?; Chloe Benjamin, The Immortalists; John Lewis, March; Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me; Claude Steele, Whistling Vivaldi; Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon; T.H. White, Once and Future King; Carol Dwek, Mindset; Michael Chabon, Moonglow...

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