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UD math education alumna wins Knowles Foundation fellowship
11:23 a.m., May 10, 2016--Rebecca Guarino came to the University of Delaware planning to use her talents in mathematics to study engineering, but she discovered a love of teaching — and of connecting with the kids who most needed help — that she couldn’t ignore.
Today, the 2015 graduate with a dual major in secondary math education and women and gender studies is teaching 10th grade geometry at a high school in New York City and has just been awarded a prestigious fellowship for beginning teachers from the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation.
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The fellowships offer recipients financial support to further their own education and to buy materials for their classrooms, as well as a network of professional development and collaborative opportunities with other educators. Only about 30 recipients are selected each year from applicants throughout the United States
“This program has so many benefits, and what’s incredible is that it brings teachers from all over the country together to share ideas,” Guarino said. “So, instead of just collaborating with other teachers in my building, I can collaborate with teachers from a lot of different schools and different backgrounds and different areas.”
For the next five years, the period covered by the fellowship, Guarino expects to take part in numerous online and in-person professional development experiences, as well as discussions and classroom visits with her colleagues in the program.
She is also enthusiastic about the financial benefits and already has plans for some of that support.
“I’ll be going to Columbia [University] for graduate school in the fall, and this will help me pay for that,” she said. “Thanks to this program, I can afford a good school like Columbia.”
As for classroom materials, Guarino said her school, like most public schools, has limited resources and can make good use of any additional money. Her school, South Bronx Preparatory, is in a low-income area, and the vast majority of its students are considered economically disadvantaged.
“My classroom needs so many things,” Guarino said, adding that she and other teachers routinely buy supplies with their own money. She’s already decided on her first purchase through the Knowles stipend — a document projector that will let her show her own and students’ work to the entire class during lessons.
Teaching math is a challenge, especially because so many students assume they’re bad at the subject and that they will find classes difficult and uninteresting, Guarino said. But that’s exactly what she likes about her job.
“I love math, and I love teaching math because it is a challenge,” she said. “I want to show my students that they can enjoy math and be good at it. It wouldn’t be fun to teach something that was easy.”
More about the Knowles fellowship
The Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, established in 1999, aims to increase the number of high-quality high school science and mathematics teachers in order to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in the United States.
The Teaching Fellows Program, the foundation’s signature program, targets young teachers and empowers them to become leaders in strengthening the teaching profession.
The program also seeks to address the national problem of teachers who leave the profession before they develop expertise, and the gap in which children of color and children living in poverty are disproportionately taught by the least experienced teachers.
Article by Ann Manser
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson