Chemeketa: In Their Own Words

Phyllis Leonard

It's a long way from the view of mathematics as a collection of fearsome and tedious skills to the possibility that success in math can help you see yourself in new and powerful ways, but Phyllis Leonard is one Chemeketa instructor who revels in the change of perspective.

Now in her 14th year as a mathematics instructor, Phyllis is as animated, theatrical and passionate about the importance  and relevance  of mathematics in students' lives as any poetry, drama, literature or language instructor is about his or her discipline.

"Most students  even those in the zero hour of earning the math credits necessary for a baccalaureate degree  come to mathematics with fear in their hearts," she says.

And it takes being a bit of a psychologist as well as a math instructor in helping students see themselves as successful math thinkers, she adds.

"If you are afraid, you can't learn," she says, adding that "it is so much more meaningful" to move our thinking from rudimentary, rote memorization to conceptual ideas that actually describe the world in which we live.

"It's impossible to learn something new unless it's connected to something you already know," she says. To that end, students¡ life experiences are crucial to their math development.

In striving to help her students make all the important connections with the mathematical ideas and "collaborators" at Chemeketa, she structures a welcoming classroom environment where students have opportunities to build work teams and find access to all they need in order to succeed as math learners.

To that end, most of her office hours are scheduled in the Chemeketa Tutoring Center, on the second floor of Building 2 on the Salem Campus, where she can work together with students and tutors, and students can count on a network of support and resources.

And her classrooms don't feature lectures, where students sit passively and take notes. "My sessions are very collaborative," she says, "and are structured as an active learning environment. My questions often ask students to interpret, explain, and justify their thinking."

Her students seem to react well to her methods, and if they see the process of learning mathematics in the analogy of a dance, she admits that she tries very hard to "choreograph tomorrow based on what I see today."

Updated October 2006 by the College Advancement Department.