Jon Middleton has been an adjunct instructor here at Mesa since January 2015. In that time, he’s managed to teach a number of different classes: Math 92, 116, 119, 150 and 151. He even did an honors project on Fourier Analysis with one of his Math 151 students last semester.
In addition to teaching a Mesa, he also teaches at Southwestern College and is working on a PhD! To learn more about his teaching philosophy and the man himself, we asked him the following questions:
I know you’re working on your PhD. What is your dissertation work on?
My PhD combines ideas from two different fields of mathematics: the calculus of variations and representation theory. The calculus of variations is concerned with finding extreme values of functions, and representation theory studies symmetry using the methods of linear algebra. My thesis problem is in the same spirit as those variation problems in Math 150 and 252 where one finds extreme values of functions with the second derivative test. The difference is that my functions are defined on infinite-dimensional spaces, and I need to exploit symmetry before I can carry out that second derivative test.
What’s your favorite class to teach here at Mesa and why?
Teaching Math 92 is fun, because many of the students in that class are better at mathematics than they believe. Somehow they had been made to understand that math was “not for them”. Giving them a chance to see that they can understand motion and finance and probability in mathematical terms is enjoyable.
I must admit that I’m partial to calculus. Infinity is a lot of fun to play with!
I’ve noticed you use Desmos a bunch in your classes. What are some of the things you do using Desmos? How do students react to it?
Desmos is a powerful pedagogical tool. It’s the future. What ordinarily takes five minutes of explanation on a whiteboard, Desmos explains in five seconds. Whether it’s a Type II error in hypothesis testing, or a limit of a sequence of functions, or rose petal parametrized in polar coordinates, Desmos allows me to show it quickly and dynamically.
What do you do for fun when you’re not working on your dissertation or doing teaching-related stuff?
When I’m not teaching or putting my head in the clouds, I’m photographing nature while backpacking in the wilderness, or watching my beloved New York Mets struggle through another season, or lifting weights at the gym.
Mesa Math Department 