BY PEL\u0130N SU UZUNCAG\u0130L (AMER\/II)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
su.uzuncagil@ug.bilkent.edu.tr<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Asst. Prof. Anita Alexander is an instructor in the Department of Educational Sciences. She received her BSc from Ohio University in Secondary Education & Integrated Mathematics, her MS from Kent State University in Pure Mathematics, and her PhD from Kent State University in Curriculum & Instruction. Her research interest is the teaching norms and instructional strategies of both secondary and post-secondary mathematics instructors, with a focus on Inquiry-Based Learning, Differentiation, and STEM Education. She also enjoys teaching people how to solve a Rubik\u2019s Cube. She teaches \u201cThesis Seminar\u201d (CI 509), \u201cTrends and Issues in Instruction\u201d (CI 515), \u201cSpecial Teaching Methods\u201d (CI 551), \u201cIssues and Trends in Education\u201d (CI 611), \u201cAssessing Student Learning and Process\u201d (CI 508) and \u201cEducational Statistics\u201d (CI 604).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why did you choose an academic career?<\/strong> Why\/how did you choose Bilkent? What do you like the most about being at Bilkent?<\/strong> What projects are you working on currently?<\/strong> What\u2019s your best work?<\/strong> What excites you about your work? What\u2019s the coolest thing about your work?<\/strong> Could you share a turning point or defining moment in your career?<\/strong> What has been the most exciting moment of your career so far?<\/strong> What\u2019s one piece of information from your field that you think everyone should know?<\/strong> When and where do you do your best thinking?<\/strong> What distracts you?<\/strong> What are you most curious about?<\/strong> What\u2019s the most common misconception about your work?<\/strong> What do you like to do when you\u2019re not working?<\/strong> Which books have influenced you the most, and why?<\/strong> If you weren\u2019t an academician, what career would you choose?<\/strong> What\u2019s the secret to leading a happy life?<\/strong> If you could go back to your undergraduate\/graduate student years, what advice would you give to your younger-self?<\/strong> BY PEL\u0130N SU UZUNCAG\u0130L (AMER\/II) su.uzuncagil@ug.bilkent.edu.tr Asst. Prof. Anita Alexander is an instructor in the Department of Educational Sciences. She received her BSc from Ohio University in Secondary Education & Integrated Mathematics, her MS from Kent State University in Pure Mathematics, and her PhD from Kent State University in Curriculum[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,83,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4561,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions\/4561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I thought I could affect more change in education that way. I used to teach high school math. I went back to school so I could become a teacher educator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I chose Bilkent for its graduate school of education. I get to work with both preservice and inservice teachers. We have a master\u2019s and PhD program, and we are working with great students. The students are my favorite part of Bilkent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am working with undergraduate and graduate Mathematics students on \u201ceffective practice in teaching mathematics in university.\u201d The students in our program are either inservice teachers or studying to be teachers, but there are also some students in the mathematics department that are going to become professors but haven\u2019t had any teaching courses. So, we get together to talk about effective ways to teach advanced mathematics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s the work that I am doing right now. Eventually I\u2019d like to create a course. It would be a seminar course in which we meet and collaborate. I\u2019d like it to be for people who are interested in learning about effective practice in teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What excites me is having the opportunity to motivate teachers and future educators to increase engagement, inquiry and discourse. We do fun puzzles and games to motivate critical thinking. It\u2019s exciting to work with teachers who are already passionate about what they do. They are in graduate school because they are lifelong learners and they want to improve upon their practice. The cool part is that our department is Curriculum and Instruction, so we are all from different backgrounds. My background is mathematics, but I work with a lot of teachers in the English Language and Literature and Biology and Science departments as well as other areas and different grade levels. We get to collaborate with each other. I really like interdisciplinary work as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was teaching high school mathematics, I started presenting at conferences on effective practice in teaching. I realized then that I wanted to be a teacher educator, so I went back to school for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is a tough question because I\u2019ve been teaching for 20 years. There are so many exciting moments. Last semester I was working with preservice teachers and they were doing student teaching. Some of them were at BLIS, and I got to go into one of the classrooms where one of my former students teaches. It was really exiting to witness her as a current educator and to see her as a mentor to a preservice teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inquiry and discourse are very important for students\u2019 conceptual understanding at any age level and in any content area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It depends because there are two aspects of my job, and they are very different: teaching and research. When our graduate students are writing their thesis or dissertation, we suggest they create an ideal writing environment. Our writing environment is different from where we do other things like research and teaching, so I think it is important to create an environment for different aspects of our jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes planning engaging lessons distracts me from my research, but I try to separate the different aspects of my job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to support current teachers who are interested in learning about engaging practices but don\u2019t have a background in education. Many of my friends and colleagues here have degrees in their specialty and really care about their students\u2019 learning and engagement. They ask me about it often, which is great. I\u2019m curious about how to support instructors and professors that are interested in learning more about teaching and learning practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People don\u2019t believe that the strategies we used in high school mathematics translate to university mathematics. They do look different. In our seminar we talk about how there\u2019s a big difference between high school level and advanced mathematics, but some of the strategies can be implemented in both types of content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like to read but I don\u2019t have much time for \u201cfun\u201d reading right now. Most of the things that I read are academic. I used to go dancing more than I do now. I used to coach a high school dance team. That was always fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am currently reading \u201cWhat If? 2\u201d by Randall Monroe. He has a science background. He worked for NASA, and he answers everyone\u2019s absurd scientific questions accurately but in a funny way. I think it would be a great way to teach science. I really like his books because they are LOL funny but also informative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d do consultancy work in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being passionate about what you do and balancing your personal and professional life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, my undergraduate advice and my graduate advice are very different. For my undergraduate self, the best advice would be to learn time management. This is what we tell our students right now. I would tell my graduate self to start thinking about structuring and writing my thesis earlier instead of after my course work. In our program we try to get students to start writing as soon as possible. For my master\u2019s program, I did my course work and then my thesis. In my PhD we did kind of synchronize the work. Sometimes students think that the course work and thesis are separate, but they should actually be more integrated. It helps with productivity and making more connections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"