Who is Mr. Vaughn?
Welcome to my classroom page. I am a fourth year teacher, currently teaching Algebra 1 primarily to 9th grade students, and the teacher leader for our school’s math department. My previous teaching experiences have included Engineering and Robotics for 6th - 8th grades, Statistics for 11th - 12th grades, and Algebra 2 for 10th - 11th grades.​​​​
HOW DOES MY EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND SHAPE MY TEACHING? My educational background consists of Bachelor's Degrees in Political Science (International Politics concentration) and Physics (Biology minor), as well as a Master's Degree in Education. I expect to graduate with a Master's Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in December. As a student through high school, I learned things easily but didn't always push myself to my full potential, causing me to miss out on any scholarships. This has shaped who I am as a teacher by making me more understanding, but trying to encourage students to fulfill their potential and think longer term about their future success and how math will impact their daily lives with budgeting, investing, understanding credit, and interest rates on large purchases such as cars and houses. I was also the student that looked for patterns and shortcuts, especially when it came to math, so I encourage students to do the same and I promote the idea that there are often many ways to solve a problem and students should use the method that makes the most sense to them, rather than forcing them to do it the way that makes the most sense to me.
HOW HAS MY INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE SHAPED MY TEACHING? My love of working with people from all over the world comes from spending 7 years working in Army Intelligence where I was part of several multinational teams. When I became a teacher, I jumped at the opportunity to take on a role that allowed me to work with students from various backgrounds and spoke many different languages. I enjoy the challenge of bridging the gaps between the universal language of mathematics, the English language that our curriculums and standardized tests are provided in, and the various home languages of my students.
WHAT IS AN ASSUMPTION THAT HAS SHAPED MY TEACHING? One thing I’ve learned as a teacher is not to assume someone’s mathematical knowledge based on their grade level or age. Students have a lot of different experiences with math in school settings and in their personal lives. With this in mind, my teaching approach is to break down every practice problem, cover every piece of knowledge that’s needed (whether grade level or prior), and use many different modes of instruction to help students understand what should be done to solve a problem, why it should be done, and to stress the critical thinking process of understanding these.
HOW DO I EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY IN MY CLASSROOM? I embrace technology use in my classroom. I use PrismsVR virtual reality headsets to help students understand mathematical concepts by allowing them to manipulate real-world scenarios in a gamified experience to see where the numbers in math problems are coming from and how making changes affect the outcomes. I utilize my YouTube channel to provide students with each day's lesson in case they're absent or need to review what we talked about in class. This also allows for closed captioning that can be translated into home languages for multi-language learners. During class, I use a Bluetooth writing tablet that allows me to work practice problems with students on my Smart Board by highlighting, color coding, and diagraming each step so students see what changes are being made in each step and where numbers are coming from.
WHAT ARE MY SHORT AND LONG TERM GOALS IN EDUCATION?    My short term goal is to help students lose their preconceived notions or fears about math, and feel it’s something they can accomplish again. Many students have told me they enjoyed math when they were younger, but began to feel overwhelmed by it in middle school so they’ve given up learning it as freshmen in high school. If I’m successful in this goal, it will hopefully put students back on track to being successful in their high school classes and set a good foundation in basic mathematical skills they’ll use the rest of their lives.    My long term goal is to be a part of the team that turns around our school’s math proficiency results and build an online platform that helps reach people all over the world who need help understanding math and feeling like they’re capable of doing it again. I believe a lot of issues people have, especially when it comes to personal finances, stem from the stigma and fear of math caused by unpleasant experiences in their schooling years.
