Cacey Wells

In memoriam: Farewell, Geometry Baby. You were my favorite sculpture on campus. So weird and so strange. In the wake of a football victory last week, you were used as a dinghy to sail across the duckpond and will be forever missed. It was probably worth it. #AppState

Migrating to Bluesky to find my mathematics friends, education colleagues, and fellow mathematics educators. bsky.app/profile/clduby…

Gave a talk at School Science and Mathematics Association Annual Convention on Ungrading: A conversation with teacher educators. Thanks for the great turnout! - via #Whova event app

"Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, and lightning does not travel in a straight line. The complexity of nature's shapes differs in kind, not merely degree, from that of the shapes of ordinary geometry, the geometry of fractal shapes." - Benoit B. Mandelbrot

In North Carolina, Remnants of Helene Become an ‘Unprecedented Tragedy’ nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/…

Now hiring for Assistant/Associate Professor appstate.peopleadmin.com/postings/47647

Can we count on your support? Never Forget!!!! #duckpondbaby @appstate @AppState_FB @appstatesports

@profsamperry @CooperSBeckett Wait a sec... Isn't Bitcoin digital currency? It's a miracle they can be held!

Simone Biles is now the most decorated US Olympics gymnast, so here is a thread of her as functions y = x

Year 5 of professoring is in the books! I successfully submitted my P&T materials. Next semester, I'll be a newly teured, associate professor! #Appstate is a great place to work, and Boone is a wonderful town to live in!

@profsamperry @PastorBenMarsh That's an outrageous thing for someone to say. Degenerates??? Really???

@profsamperry Thick skin, a willingness to revise, and having a decent queue of papers in your pipeline (depending on personal and professional expectations) were all great bits of advice for me in grad school.

"I have discovered things so wonderful that I was astounded ... out of nothing I have created a strange new world." Bolyai developing non-Euclidean geometry. College & career readiness is fine, but that quote is 99% of "why math?" Learn math. Become Life, the creator of worlds.

@profsamperry Congrats, Sam!

@thejasonkantor At the end of the day, we need to stop finding phony applications for the sake of application and showcase the beauty and wonder of mathematics. This sparks curiosity and joy of learning.

@thejasonkantor If we think about literature or litarary devices, those aren't always useful, but they are utilized. Same with math. It is more akin to an art. I usually share this with students. Much like yourself, honesty is key. And, students really appreciate it.

When am I going to use math in real life? In my 7 years of teaching I have heard this question more than any other question from kids and teens Here is how I answer it honestly and genuinely how you can answer it too if your child asks you this question I think the most important thing is to be honest Some things, especially if they are in a public or traditional school, will have no application or use to them once they leave school Most kids, teens especially, have told me they understand this and just wished their teachers and parents were honest about it So just be honest and tell them it will only be used for the test and in school and they'll appreciate that so much When they ask when they are going to use math in real-life I explain to them that yes they won't be using geometry or algebra in their everyday lives BUT what that did help to teach them is working through solving multi-step problems Working through math equations helps teach us that we have to be very careful and pay close attention to every step of what we are doing So the math itself is for the most part useless outside of school but what we use in real life is the multi-step problem solving skills and that is certainly useful in our everyday lives no matter what our career or life turns out to be Will this cure their disinterest in math and magically motivate them? - Of course not But what it can do is try to show them that there is use to what they are learning and its not all pointless - we can get something out of it What do you say when you are asked: “When am I going to use this in real life?”

@thnorfar Amazing!

Thank you for this carefully constructed research summary @alfiekohn alfiekohn.org/blogs/clt/

@profsamperry Agreed! It's a great gig - 4.5 years in. My list is the opposite order, though: Teach, write, research. Ha!