Rachel Gelderman & Susan West
Teaching Experience
Rachel Gelderman has more than 27 years total experience in math education, serving as a public school teacher and as a private math tutor. Her expertise and understanding of advanced math concepts have made her an outstanding teacher in Honors and Advanced math courses. Susan West has been a math teacher in a public school for 20 years, serving students at all levels from foundational courses to Honors courses. Her ability to approach math concepts in a variety of ways, making complicated topics simple, has made her a valued teacher and colleague. Together Rachel and Susan founded Ripples-to-Waves Publications in 2007. They continue to create math warm ups as well as other products to review and/or reteach math concepts and to prepare students for standardized testing. They have also developed a number of math materials (such as the Quick Reference Guide to Fractions) to help parents and students more easily understand math topics and processes. They spend many hours writing (and editing) step-by-step solutions to the warm up problems they develop so that students will be better able to understand how to arrive at a valid solution and why specific steps were necessary.
Teaching Style
From manipulatives to group investigations (math “labs”), Rachel and Susan have used a variety of methods to reach students. Over the past 20 years, instructional methods have continued to become more student-centered. Rachel and Susan have been willing to experiment with new methods, adopting approaches that improve student learning and retention of skills. They have been advocates of sound pedagogy, discouraging colleagues from resorting to jingles, songs, and meaningless acronyms. They encourage students to take risks and ask questions.
Personal Educational History
Both Rachel and Susan have mathematics degrees with certifications to teach grades 7 through 12. Rachel’s degree is from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts; Susan’s degree is from Castleton University in Vermont. Both Rachel and Susan completed their student teaching experiences in Middle School environments, preparing to make a difference with students at a challenging but critical age. Rachel and Susan have continued their education with various courses while serving as math teachers in public high schools. They continue to grow as educators through their students, uncovering difficulties that challenge children and young adults, and developing alternative solution methods (sometimes “guessing and checking” is simpler and easier on a multiple-choice question). They work to provide quality materials which will help students to succeed in mathematics.
Development of Our Math Resources
Rachel & Susan initially developed math resources to prepare their students for standardized testing. They were dissatisfied with the available state test practice resources which focused on one concept at a time and failed to extensively and continuously review topics in a mixed format. As high school math teachers, they knew that students needed to refresh previously learned skills in order to be successful on the state standardized test. Although math should build on itself, if you don’t use it, you lose it!
They also found that students frequently could not master more difficult concepts because their foundational skills were weak or lacking. Many students struggled with basic skills involving fractions, percents, and operations with integers. Students often attempted to remember rules without understanding, made inappropriate associations between concepts, or found no connection at all between topics. Students also seemed to lack “math sense” or an understanding of whether a process or an answer is reasonable. Rachel & Susan also recognized that identifying and addressing areas of weakness without losing precious class time is a challenge for teachers.
These fundamental skill deficits continue to prevent students from succeeding in high school math courses such as algebra and geometry as well as on standardized tests. Students who are unsuccessful feel that they cannot “do math” and lack confidence in their ability. Rachel & Susan began to develop resources to strengthen students’ skills, allowing students to grow in their basic understanding of mathematics. They focused on a few simple goals:
• To build students’ basic math skills
• To make connections between reasoning and mathematical processes
• To develop students’ understanding of the algebraic process
• To improve students’ math sense and assessment of reasonableness
• To build students’ confidence and competence on a daily basis
They first published their collection of math warm-ups as a spiral-bound book in 2007 after spending more than a year developing exercises, writing and editing solutions, creating images & charts/tables, indexing problems and compiling the work for printing. Based on their success, they began to market their work on a national basis, followed by the decision to become sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers in 2016.
In their opinion, the best teachers are reflective learners. Through this enterprise, they have demonstrated this belief as they continue to expand their product line, developing new skills to meet the growing responsibilities of their small business venture. They generate new images and product covers with graphic art software, experiment in website development, and develop digital resources through various programs. Although they occasionally receive help/advice from family and friends, “It’s still just us – we do it all!”
Additional Biographical Information
Rachel and her husband are currently raising two talented and gifted young women. She divides her time between her family, math tutoring, and creating products for Math Momentum. Rachel also spends time as the Facebook facilitator. Susan has been a single parent of four fine young men who are now college graduates, working in their fields. She has always promoted the life-changing power of education. She has recently retired and plans to spend more time producing material to support mathematics educators through Math Momentum.
