About ε-δ

This blog is intended to be a journal of sorts as I explore what it means to be a good math teacher. Also, I’ve been so inspired by some of the math ed blogs out there in the blogosphere that I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

I called this blog Epsilon-Delta based the definition of function continuity as systemized by greats like Cauchy, Weierstrass, and Bolzano.  The reason for this is two-fold.  First, I feel this definition is a mathematical staple.  It’s a beautiful example of how we can take an idea that seems fairly straight forward to describe in words or in pictures and write it rigorously in mathematical symbols.  Plus, what’s more delightful than a continuous function?    (You’re thinking, a differentiable function, aren’t you?)  Second, I’m a firm believer in mathematics education being continuous.  That is, I believe as math educators we should do everything we can to help students learn math continuously.  Learning math should be a process, not just some math course you took your sophomore year of college in order to fulfill a graduation requirement.  For me, this means high schools and colleges need to collaborate more.  Furthermore, if we expect our students’ learning to be continuous, our learning as teachers should also be continuous.  We should constantly be striving to grow both as mathematicians and as educators.  As one of my mentors would say, “The day I think I have everything figured out as a teacher is the day I need to retire.”

Finally, I can take little to no credit for coming up with anything original on this blog.  Much of what I use I’ve found from other extraordinary teachers, and I’ve adapted their ideas to fit my own classroom needs.  So, thank you to all the math teachers whose ideas are represented on these pages.