K-12 teaching experience
Math Kangaroo online training
Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest
2006-2015
Introduction
The Math Kangaroo is a highly regarded math enrichment contest held annually in 75 countries around the globe, with over six million participants in grades 1-12. The contest consists of 24-30 multiple choice questions, and students have one hour to solve them. Topics tend to require outside-the-box thinking and do not heavily rely on core curricula or arithmetic.
The Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest (CMKC) originated in Ottawa in 2001, and by 2016, it had over 20 locations nationwide. Training sessions are organized every year to introduce students to the contest and to guide them through some problems from previous years.
Since 2006, I have led in-person enrichment and training workshops for the Kangaroo Math Contest at the University of Ottawa. In 2010, I was on the problem selection committee for grades 5-6 at the Kangaroo Sans Frontières summit in the Republic of Georgia. In 2013, I conducted one of the first online training sessions for students who lived far from their local testing centres. I led multiple webcast training workshops for grades 3-8 over the following three years.
More info:
- International Math Kangaroo Association
- Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest
- Grade 3-4 training slideshow
- Grade 5-6 training slideshow
- Grade 7-8 training slideshow
ABC Take-Off Enrichment Camps
Association for Bright Children of Ontario
2008-2009
Introduction
The ABC Take-Off program provides six-week enrichment courses to interested children in the Ottawa, ON area. Courses are offered in a vast variety of subjects, including juggling, fabric art, dissection, chess, robotics, pastels, rocketry, chemistry, photography, forensics, math, architecture, geology, entomology, logic, reptiles, and many more. Over the course of two semesters, I taught five different courses for 8-12 year olds for ABC Take-Off's Ottawa chapter. Working with middle school students was an extremely rewarding experience and it led to my interest in other enrichment programs, including the Math Kangaroo contest.
Courses
- Math: More Than Numbers. Counting systems, cryptography, math in art and ancient discoveries.
- Theatre: Take the Stage. Voice, movement, stage presence, characterization and dramatic reading.
- Ancient Civilizations. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the role of geography in the development of civilizations, mythology.
- Methods and Mysteries of Mathematics. Pigeonhole principle, divisibility, factorization, games, numeral systems, and logical proof methods.
- Foundations of Computer Programming. Variables, conditionals, loops, arithmetic, I/O and basic functions in Python.
- Strategy Game Creation. Create a multiplayer tabletop strategy game from a map of the Mediterranean.