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IVCC alum chairs math department at Missouri college, works to change how students see the subject · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  IVCC, Alum Chair's Math Department at Missouri College, works to change how
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  students see the subject. Written by Emily Beebe This article is
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  being read by an automated voice brought to you by Everlett. Eric
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  Yauk knows the sentence well because everyone says it, and no one
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  flinches. It is socially acceptable to say you are bad at math,
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  and nobody bats an eye, he said. Yauch is not asking anyone
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  to love it. What Yauk has done at Westminster College in Missouri,
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  where he chairs the math department, is show students they can succeed
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  in mastering the concepts. Yausch, a 2012 graduate of Illinois Valley Community
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  College, said he enjoyed math and loved tutoring it on campus. For
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  most people, math is a computationally heavy subject, he said in a
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  news release. But once I got past sophomore year I realized math
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  is not just all about numbers. Yausch now holds a doctorate. At
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  Westminster, he helps develop approaches to teaching and learning that are changing
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  outcomes, such as increasing grades, students being more prepared and fewer students
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  abandoning the subject in frustration. As the college's Math Pathways coordinator, Yauch
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  works with students at every level. Seeing students understand a piece of
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  math for the first time and completely change their perspective of their
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  ability to do mathematics, that is always a rewarding experience, he
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  said. In addition, elective classes that offer additional instruction and they chance
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  to repeat they tasks students struggle with are proving effective. Many students
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  apply to attend the math tutoring and study lab that Jauch oversees.
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  The biggest success is getting them to do their homework, he said.
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  They spend time with me in a lab where they can ask
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  right away if they get stuck on a problem. His efforts are
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  being recognized. Yaux recently was named Junior Faculty of the Year in
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  the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Division at Westminster. He said he never
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  planned on teaching, medicine interested him, as well as theatre and music.
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  However, ICCC math professors Wes and Mary Black ignited his own mathematical
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  spark. When Mary Black suggested he consider college level instruction, he said
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  that something clicked. While other fields move through technological revolutions, Yauke said
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  math largely is taught the way It always has been, adding that
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  that fact is starting to shift. Now we integrate how we think
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  about a problem not just how to get to the answer, he
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  said in the release. Math is important because it strengthens critical thinking
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  muscles and expands our ability to work through problems. It teaches us
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  how to look at information that is presented to us. It touches
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  so many other subjects, it allows us to teach problem solving, and
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  lets us go back and assess our problem solving skills. Maybe we
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  don't need to know some of the formulas we learned in high
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  school, but it is still important to be exposed to math. Yauchs
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  said that math is built on centuries of collaboration and is passed
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  to future generations, adding that it fascinates him. He said he is
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  happy to contribute to that lineage.