About Mr. Felling

Family - My wife, Kristen, and I have been married for over 30 years and have two children, Rachel and Brian, both now through college and working.  I was born in Anaheim, California, lived briefly in the Chicago area, but moved to Tempe when I was in 2nd grade, so I'm almost an Arizona native.  My wife is from Grand Junction, Colorado and works as a Dental Hygienist.

Hobbies - My main hobby is doing things with my wife - we love to watch movies and TV, especially British/Canadian/Australian shows, like detective stories and sci-fi.  But I am also a musician (piano, guitar, bass, singing, experimenting with saxophone and drums) and have, at various times, played acoustic guitar around a campfire, played electric bass and lead guitar in a rock band, sang baritone in a barbershop quartet, and played piano for weddings and as a regular accompanist for congregational singing at church. I am currently singing in an SATB community chorus and with two, smaller acapella singing groups. I also enjoy reading, watching movies, and listening to music (pretty much every style.)

If you want more info about my music, here is a page with links to YouTube videos you may be interested to see: Mr. Felling plays music.

Education and Experience - I went to Mesa High School, then received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University and worked for 20 years in industry as an electrical engineer and software engineer at companies including Motorola (now General Dynamics), Orbital Sciences Corporation (now Northrop Grumman), and Intel Corporation.

While I was working as an engineer, I sometimes volunteered in my own kids' classrooms and discovered that, while engineering work was very interesting and lucrative, I was finding it more rewarding to share my knowledge of mathematics with young people to help them achieve their own goals. I believe we face a challenge as a nation to keep up with other nations in math and science - and our ability to lead in new areas of discovery requires that we prioritize preparing our youth to meet these future challenges.

So I switched from engineering to teaching, first as a substitute teacher in the Kyrene Middle School district and then, after obtained a Masters in Secondary Education specializing in Math Education, teaching full time at Desert Vista High School beginning in 2010, where I have taught Geometry, Honors Algebra 2, Precalculus, Honors Finite Math/Brief Calculus, AP Statistics, AP Calculus BC, and Honors Calculus III / Differential Equations. I am also on staff at Rio Salado Community College as a Dual-Enrollment Instructor so that the students in my classes in high school can also earn college credit.

If you are interested in more details about my engineering and software background career experiences and my transition to teaching, you can explore the following: My Career

My teaching philosophy

My goal is to create engaging lessons that ensure students learn the curriculum, as well as the concepts behind the curriculum, while providing a welcoming and comfortable classroom environment in which students can learn.

• Students learn the curriculum, but also leave the course loving math and confident in their abilities - I believe we have two, equally-important, goals as math teachers and I structure my courses with these two goals in mind:
  1) Students must fully learn the course curriculum at a conceptual level and be able to apply their knowledge flexibly and in a variety of contexts.
  2) Students should leave a math course confident in their abilities, enjoying math, and enthusiastic about their next steps.
• Positive reinforcement - As often as practical, I try to make sure students know that I genuinely want them to succeed, not just in math class, but in life.  Encouraging words, pointing out how their choices are affecting their own futures, celebrating victories both in behavior and in academic and other achievements, all help students to see that people notice when they do things well, and that they can trust that what I ask them to do as a teacher is in their best interests.
• Treat students with respect - I believe it is critical that students see, in their teacher, a good model for how to act respectfully.  I want students to know that, while I am not their friend, I respect them as individuals.  Where possible, I believe in allowing and encouraging students to express their individuality where doing so does not disrupt the learning environment.  I also want students to know that I respect their time...I will strive to make each day's learning meaningful.  Treating students with respect allows me to, in return, require respect from everyone in the class.
• Concepts are important - Research has shown that while it is necessary for students to learn procedural approaches to solving math problems, without understanding the concepts behind the procedures, retention and application of knowledge is reduced.  I strive to introduce new topic ideas conceptually first, and then move on to procedural learning as needed.
• Traditional and reform styles each have their place; use both as appropriate - A completely reform-based approach to teaching is great for learning concepts, but in my experience, reform based teaching does take additional time to cover material compared to traditional lecture/homework style teaching.  I believe the best approach uses both traditional and reform styles as needed.  Reform is perhaps better at introducing new topics, focusing on concept learning, and learning real-world problem solving / modeling skills.  But some topics are best taught by providing students with lots of opportunities to practice.  I strive to use a mix of traditional and reform style lessons as appropriate.