Welcome

Welcome to the Jeff Anderson Math’s Wall of Fame. On this page, I share student voices, student narratives, and student work that demonstrate the amazing learning my students do as they leverage my Strategic Deep Learning project to their advantage. Below you can find links to YouTube interviews I’ve done with students, work my students have completed for my classes, and narrative descriptions of students that I have served.

Why I want to center my students in this space?

One powerful general learning principle that I teach in my classes is that high performers build coaching teams. I often encourage my students: “please develop strong relationships with lots of people who can inspire, support, and guide you along your life journey.”

A very important position on highly effective academic teams is the role played by more experienced classmates who traveled the road you’re on in the past. Older learners can provide a great source of inspiration and wisdom by showing you what is possible, by helping you avoid their mistakes, and by providing the wisdom of their lived experience.

This process of specifically seeking out the guidance and mentorship of older learners aligns with research-based practices found in The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Skills. That book builds on research in the science of expertise to provide practical guidance to anyone interested in building high levels of skill in any field. The author, Daniel Coyle, does this by translating the many lessons from his other book The Talent Code: Greatness is Not Born. It's Grown into a collection of 52 tips to help learners build real skill. The very first tip in The Little Book of Talent reads as follows:

“Section 1: Getting Started. Stare, steal, and be willing to be stupid.

Tip # 1: Stare at who you want to become.

If you were to visit a dozen talent hotbeds tomorrow, you would be struck by how much time the learners spend observing top performers. When I say “observing,” I’m not talking about passively watching. I’m talking about starting - the kind of raw, unblinking, intensely absorbed gazes you see in hungry cats or new born babies.

We live with a “windshield” of people in front of us; one of the keys to igniting your motivation is to fill your windshield with vivid images of your future self, and to stare at them every day. Studies show that even a brief connection with a role model can vastly increase unconscious motivation.

Talent hotbeds are fueled by the windshield phenomenon… Think of your windshield as an energy source for your brain. Use pictures (the walls of many talent hotbeds are cluttered with photos and posters of their stars) or, better, video. One idea is to bookmark a few YouTube videos, and watch them before you practice, or at night before you go to bed. ”
— • The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Skills by Daniel Coyle

You can see Tip #1 in the practice of young athletes who spend hundreds or even thousands of hours watching their favorite professional athletes on TV. These young people stare at their idols, copy their moves, and use the resource of televised sports as an important component of their training.

When thinking about this reality, it is worth asking: why is it so much easier for young people to study the athletic accomplishments of professional athletes than it is to study the academic accomplishments of working professionals?

The answer to this question has to do with money and profits. Very wealthy people, the type that own professional sports teams, make lots of money from professional athletics. Thus, the people who own sports teams and broadcasting stations have a substantial profit-based interest in televising athletic competition.

Similar profit motives do not exist for highlighting the academic accomplishments of public school students, especially for those students who come from low-income and vulnerable populations. This discussion of how profits relate to what young people can watch on TV reminds me of a great Key & Peele sketch, as seen below.

In my work as a teacher, I focus lots of energy on helping my students make profits. Instead of exploiting their labor to make myself richer (the way the owners of professional sports teams do), I like to invest lots of care into my students. I love to help my students build valuable skills that they can use to transform the rest of their lives.

To highlight the type of work I do, I use this Wall of Fame webpage to share small samples of some of the genius of my past students. I want my future students to feel inspired by my previous students. I hope that each of my students develop their own wall of fame that includes the stories and narratives of many more experienced learners who are farther along their journeys on the same road(s) you’re on. Below I highlight some excellent work produced my past students. Enjoy!

Meta-Learning-Focused Portfolio Work

Since my main job is to serve students, I have been collecting evidence of the work I do with my students and the impact that this work has in their lives. Below are some examples of what my a few of students have achieved using the skills I helped them cultivate during my time in service to their education.  In the narratives below, I worked hard to capture student voices so that you can hear what my students say about our work together (rather than trusting my word as a teacher). Moreover, I was very careful to document the types of outcomes my students achieve with my coaching. To learn more about my How to become a strategic deep learner project, click on any of the following links:

Let me be clear: when my students succeed, it is because they do all the hard work and deep learning. My students are my boss. I am their servant, dish washer, and shoe-shiner. The narratives below demonstrate how powerful the principles and practices I teach can be for students in their lives but the genius in this work is in my students.

Mark Asmar: my first conquering college protégé, Winter ’15 – Spring ’20

Foothill alum Mark Asmar reported that he barely graduated from high school with a 2.0 GPA before starting his community college career. Then, starting in my class in winter 2015, Mark and I spent many years working together to build his Conquering College processes. After five years of coaching, Mark reported that he became a top performing student who graduated SJSU with a 3.7 GPA and went on to earn his MBA at the top of his class. Mark used the learning skills that he created via his Conquering College processes to position himself to earn much more than $100K per year doing work that he cares about. To learn more about Mark’s story, please watch any of the following videos on YouTube:

Henry Fan: my first Get Paid to Learn protégé, fall ’17 – present

Foothill alum Henry Fan said that, when I first met him in fall 2017, he had never applied for a single scholarship. I worked with Henry for three years using my Get Paid to Learn project. Henry used what he learned to make over $20K in scholarship money at Foothill and more than $50K during his undergrad. In addition to cash payments directly into his bank account, Henry earned funding to travel around the nation and internationally as he explored his career options. Henry also participated in many paid internship and work study programs directly related to his target career path so that he got paid to build transferable skills towards his vision for his future. In spring 2023, Henry graduated debt free with a BS in Computer Science from SJSU and is planning to earn graduate degrees (like a master’s and Ph.D.) in Computer Science to launch a career teaching Computer Science at a California Community College. To learn more about Henry’s story, please watch any of the following videos on YouTube:

Daniel Ramos: my first protégé to finish BOTH Conquering College and Get Paid to Learn, spring ’22 – present

When I met Foothill alum Daniel Ramos in spring 2022, he had withdrawn from 15 college classes and had not passed more than two STEM classes in a single quarter. Daniel said that he struggled to gets B’s and C’s in STEM classes and felt like something was wrong with him or like he just couldn’t do this work. However, within the one quarter of deep work on the conquering college activities, Daniel transformed his approach to school and earned a 4.0 in three STEM classes during spring quarter 2022 for the first time in his college life. From fall 2022 through spring 2024 at SJSU, Daniel used his conquering college skills as a transfer student in Biomedical Engineering at SJSU to earn straight As in three out of the four semesters while taking multiple upper division STEM classes each term. In the one semester he did not earn straight As, he earned all As and a single B. Daniel reported that the reason he earned that B was because he was working 40 – 50 hours per week while being a full-time student. During that quarter, I asked Daniel if he would like to quit his job without losing income so that he could be a full-time student. In other words, I asked Daniel if we could help him learn how to use my Get Paid to Learn project to help him earn scholarship, internship, and work study money to meet his financial needs while dedicating more time into his learning. Starting in fall 2022 and continuing to present day, Daniel and I worked together to build his Get Paid to Learn systems so that he could make over $50K in scholarship money in about 18 months. Daniel used this work to quit his 40-hour-per-week job and become a full-time student without going into debt or losing income. In other words, Daniel replaced his full-time income from paid employment that was unrelated to his future career with money that he made from scholarships, internships, and work study programs directly related to his academic and career interests. By doing this, Daniel created a world in which he can focus more time on his studies and improve his performance in school to build a foundation for his future. Daniel did all this while expecting the birth of his first baby girl and caring for elder members of his family. By building his Get Paid to Learn systems, Daniel reported spending less time working to get scholarships than at his day-job while increasing his income. I am currently working with Daniel on his From the Classroom to the Bank systems. In fall 2024, Daniel applied to PhD programs in Biomedical Engineering and a number of nationally prestigious fellowships that may help him pay for 100% of his graduate degree. To learn more, please click on any of the following links:

Maria Mihaila: another amazing Conquering College protégé, (insert dates here)

Foothill alum named Maria Mihaila used the learning skills she developed in our class to thrive in upper division math and CS classes at UC Davis. Not only did Maria take the Conquering College work serious, she also did lots of deep work on the Linear Algebraic Nodal Analysis project including coding up the LANA algorithm to solve circuit analysis problems and creating a GitHub page to highlight her efforts on this project. Maria went on to earn a nationally competitive summer internship funded by the National Science Foundation known as a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REUs). To learn more about Maria, please watch the following YouTube video:

·       YouTube Full-Feature: Math 2B Interview with Maria Mihaila (24 min, 38 sec)

Applied-Projects-Focused Portfolio Work

Natalie Thiel: my first protégé to deeply study my Linear Algebraic Nodal Analysis project

Foothill alumni Natalie Thiel used the skills she built in our Math 2B: Applied Linear Algebra class to get hired at a local engineering firm to help build her resume. Natalie began her work at Foothill in beginning algebra and spent five years training herself for transfer as an aerospace engineer. She was a student athlete who also worked part-time to help afford college. During our time together, Natalie completed my Linear Algebraic Nodal Analysis project as a part of her learning portfolio for her Math 2B class. To complete that project, Natalie combined the learning she did in this project with content from Physics 4B, Engr 11, Engr 37, Math 1C, and Math 2B to create her work. Natalie then spoke about this experience in her job interview with the technical director of her target program and used this as a platform to get technical experience as an engineer while still in college. For more about this story, please watch any of the following YouTube videos:

Hayden Seto & Chris Sakurada: protégés of From the Classroom to the Bank project

Two Foothill students, Hayden Seto and Chris Sakurada, helped build a commercially viable Power Block product to transform a 9V batter into a dc power sources for hands-on laboratory experiments for in-class learning in lower division math & engineering classes. This project led to over $20K in purchasing by Foothill College to provide at home laboratory kits to students in Foothill’s Math 2B, Engr 37, Engr 11, and Physics 4B classes during the COVID 19 lockdowns. To learn more about this project, please watch either of the following YouTube videos.

Nick Litvinov: another amazing Linear Algebraic Nodal Analysis protégé

Foothill alumni Nick Litvinov completed my Linear Algebraic Nodal Analysis project as a part of his learning portfolio for his Math 2B class in winter quarter 2022. After Nick finished his time at Foothill College, he studied at UC Berkeley from fall 2022 through spring 2023 and earned his degree in Applied Math from UCB. In winter 2024, Nick asked if I would write a letter of recommendation for him as he applied for full-time jobs. When I connected with Nick to learn more about his career goals and how I could help, Nick told me that, for him, the LANA project was the most memorable experience he had in any of his undergraduate classes. In fact, he reported that our Math 2B class was much more meaningful and memorable than any of the classes he took at UC Berkeley. In other words, Nick learned that community colleges provide students get a better education for cheaper compared with most four-year colleges. For more about this story, please watch any of the following YouTube videos:

Content-Focused Portfolio Work

Math 1C Examples: Evidence of Course Content Learning Towards Mastery

Jeff Anderson Math’s Evidence of Course Content Learning Towards Mastery

Sometimes I have the following dialog with my students.

Student:

Jeff. I know you provide me examples of work that your previous students have done. But, I want to see how you learn and do math. What specific examples can you show me of the types of learning you do when you teach yourself math and learn mathematics?

Jeff:

I love this question and I also love being transparent with my students.

I am happy to provide you with some examples. Before I do, I want you to recognize that you are about to see the learning habits of someone who spent 10+ years thinking about what it means to make a living doing mathematics. I first started imagining my life as a paid mathematician in January 2004.

I share this to say: Please be patient with yourself as you look at this work. Remember that when I was doing this work, my goal was to build a career where I could get paid to solve hard technical problems using my math skills. And I spent many, many years developing concrete learning skills with that goal in mind. Before I show you my learning work, I want to share the following link with you:

https://jeffandersonmath.wordpress.com/2023/03/10/how-to-learn-mathematics-at-the-deepest-and-highest-levels/

With all that said, I very seldom get to teach myself new math in my paid work community college teacher. Most of the classes I teach focuses on introductory-level content that I first learned in 2003 - 2004. However, in 2018, I taught a Vector Calculus class in which I got the chance to learn some new math that I had never studied deeply. Specifically, I got to teach myself an intuitive approach to Green’s Theorem from first principles. Below are some incomplete notes that I created to document my learning as I worked to deeply understand Green’s Theorem:

https://jeff-anderson-wru2.squarespace.com/s/M1D_Lesson_14_Jeffs_Handwritten_Notes_UPDATED_Draft.pdf

These notes took me about 8 hours to create and are less than half way complete. I bet that if I had the time to finish this exploration, these notes would be at least 120 pages long just to document my understanding of Green’s theorem. In the above document, I do not show the practice problems I would do to build fluency in this work and improve the depth of my understanding.

As an applied mathematician, I cultivate a few different habits as part of how I learn math (in addition to the theories of learning math that I provide in the link above).

  • One of these habits is, whenever possible, I want to prove every single theorem I am use from first principles for myself. If I’m lucky enough to have tons of time, I like to produce multiple unique proofs for the same important results.

  • Another habit I cultivate is to map the math I am learning back to application areas that I am interested in. I love the idea of using math to study real-world problems. I also love the fact that I find applied math harder and thus more interesting than pure mathematics. In applied math, not only do I get to understand interesting mathematical ideas but I also get to build transferable skills from the application areas that I study so that I can better understand the world around me. You can see that in the notes above, I am really working deeply to make explicit connections between the math theory and some popular application areas to which this theory is applied (including fluid statics and electrostatics).

  • A third habit that I use is to encode each idea using multiple representations including verbal descriptions (both abuelita language and formal terminology), visual representations, proper symbols and thoughtful notation, and so much more. The point is to create very robust, multi-dimensional mental models for each idea that I study. This work precludes my problem solving process since deep understand of the core ideas often makes problems solving much easier.

Student:

Wow. This is a lot. Do you do this every time you study math concepts? How did you balance this when you were a student? I don’t understand how you can produce work like this while taking multiple classes.

Jeff:

I love that you are discovering a deep principle of learning in mathematics: getting good at math takes a lot of time in solitude thinking deeply.

I think you are very astute when you begin to realize that doing this type of work for multiple classes during the same academic term is very difficult. This is exactly why I ask my students to go through my Conquering College Labs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

If you’re serious about learning math, the more time you spend engaged in deep learning, the more skills you can build. The irony is that, in this dialog, I haven’t even started to talk about the very large role that problem solving plays in my process. Sadly, I don’t have good examples of problem solving from that Math 1D class available for you. However, I can highlight some of how I use problem solving to deepen my explorations of fun math ideas. In the video clip below, I provide some examples of how I use problem solving as a mathematician to grow transferable skills and deepen my learning.

One challenge when taking college-level classes is that teachers often set a pace for the class that constrains my learning. Many of my college math teachers spent too much time on content I thought was easy but would rush through content that required me to spend weeks to understand. In response, I developed a number of effective practices to deal with the reality that many of my math teachers made learning harder because they chose to use harmful teaching strategies. I outline these strategies below.

First, I used time blocking to get really good work done in a set amount of time. Second, I used the two-minute rule to make progress on course content and problem solving. Third, I would visit my teachers often for lots of one-on-one dialog to force each teacher to answer my questions and give me corrective feedback on my work.

The way this looked in my classes is that I would set aside a specific chunk of time in my daily schedule to do math learning. Then, during that time, I would set specific goals for the content I wanted to finish. Anytime I got stuck, I would capture specific questions about what I was struggling with and what help I wanted. Then, I would create routine appointments (like in office hours or before/after classes) with my teachers multiple times each week to ask my questions and get expert guidance. While learning in this format was much less deep compared to when I am left alone by myself to learn at my own pace, I found that I could still make fantastic progress in the class, get excellent marks on my assignments, and learn relatively deeply even under intense time demands.

One un-stated rule that I want to mention is that in undergraduate I tried to limit myself to taking no more than two STEM classes each quarter. Two STEM classes was easily 40 - 50 hours of learning work per week. In graduate school, I allowed myself to take up to three STEM classes per quarter and could spend between 40 - 90 hours per week learning math. This is one of the reasons that I want to teach you all how to get paid to learn so that you can spend more time learning in your chosen field, if you have an interest in that!

Does that answer your question?

Student:

Yeah. I’m surprised at how much effort this takes.

Jeff:

I agree. Making a living takes a ton of thought and effort. Developing your math skills at level that you earn a substantial paycheck takes a ton of effort and practice! I hope you can treat every single class you take as an opportunity to develop your learning skills so that you can enhance your capacity to learn in the future.