Statement of Teaching Philosophy

David Hill
I really enjoy teaching mathematics and I am deeply committed to the success of my students
at all levels. Over the last several years, I have had the opportunity to teach a variety of courses
ranging from college algebra and calculus to linear algebra, analysis, and abstract algebra, as well
as three graduate level courses on group theory, Lie algebras and representation theory. In the
spring of 2010, I sponsored a reading course on category theory at UC Berkeley, and last summer
I ran a 4 week algebra training course for incoming graduate students. Additionally, during the
last two years I have acted as the local organizer for the Putnam exam at the University of
Virginia.
Like many mathematicians, I am inspired by the beauty of abstract thought. However, I
regard abstraction as a mathematicians tool for solving concrete problems as opposed to an
end in itself. When I teach, my goal is to highlight the deep relationship between theory
and application and to demonstrate the utility of the course material within the framework of
mathematics and in other disciplines as well.
My personal research interests are related to the idea of symmetry and, when teaching, I
try to emphasize how symmetry can be used to make complex problems easier to solve. A
great example of this is the idea of a surface of rotation in integral calculus, where rotational
symmetry reduces the 3-dimensional problem of computing volume to a 2-dimensional one. I
experienced a real life example of symmetry in action while working in the electrical engineering
department at Stanford, where models for certain quantum phenomena appearing in nano-scale
devices could only be calculated under the assumption of a sucient level of symmetry.
One of my primary duties over the last several years has been teaching abstract algebra to
undergraduates, and I will use it as an example to explain my teaching philosophy. This is a
course which is often derided by students as being too abstract. I dont think this needs to be
the case, though I have found it to be one of the most challenging subjects to teach eectively. I
am proud to say that when I taught abstract algebra last spring, my course received an average
rating of 4.56/5 and my rating as an instructor was 4.78/5. One student commented,
his teaching is great and his proof style is VERY solid and feels pure. What I
mean by pure is that he doesnt take any shortcuts, make hand-waving arguments,
or tell us to read the proof in the book. He always goes for it. Its an excellent
style and Professor Hill has taught me nearly everything I know about algebra
and I thank him for that.
One strategy I use to engage students in my course is to suggest examples of how the material
is used in real life, many of which I learned while organizing seminars at Berkeley, and attending
presentations by physics and engineering researchers at Stanford.
I like to use pictures to ground math in ideas as opposed to symbolic manipulation, though
both play prominently in my lectures. For example, in abstract algebra I will use results from
homework to prove that the symmetric group is generated by adjacent transpositions, and
formally derive the relations among these generators. I then give a diagrammatic description of
the group, with the adjacent transpositions corresponding to a pair of neighboring lines crossing,
and multiplication corresponding to stacking these diagrams:
(i, i + 1) =

GGw
GGw
wwG??
??wwG
(i, i + 2) = G ?? = ??G
Gw
Gw
wwG
wwG

,, 
,
,,,
 ,

From this description, I help my students verify the dening relations from the pictures and show
them how to interpret minimal coset representatives for the quotient space Sn /(Snk Sk ) in
terms of rie shues. This naturally leads me to the story of how this idea revolutionized the
Nevada gaming industry via the 7 Shue Theorem, and I indicate how the relation (i, i+1)2 = 1
1

can be deformed to produce tangle diagrams, suggesting some connections to knot theory and
quantum computing.
When asked in a recent evaluation if my course would be of value to them in the future, my
students gave me an average score of 4.44/5, and one said
my favorite math professor by far; Ive had his class before and Ill make an
eort to take courses with him in the future. . . . He also looks to include
extra bits of interest, such as applications to physics and other areas of math on
occasion.
Getting students excited about the material is just the rst step, though. I also want them to
be technically procient. This means I want them to be able to perform computations and write
valid proofs, and the only way for them to learn this is by working through problems. I assign
weekly homework consisting of approximately 10 problems and my preference is for my students
to do all of them. However, years ago some students indicated that this volume of homework was
overwhelming, so I began labeling 5 problems to be collected, leaving the remaining exercises
for test preparation.
When writing homework assignments, I try to use recurring problems to demonstrate how
the theory we develop is useful in practice. For example, when teaching courses on sequences
and series at Oregon, I used the Fibonacci sequence to show how coecients of a power series
can contain useful information. Toward the end of the term, I would outline a problem that
allowed my students to compute a closed formula for the nth Fibonacci number.
While dealing with my assignments, many students are also learning to write proofs for the
rst time. This is a dicult transition, and involves developing a new set of writing skills. At
the beginning of my courses I encourage the class to start using the LaTeX typesetting system,
in part because I believe it improves their writing, but also because I think it is a valuable tool
for producing high-quality scientic documents across a variety of disciplines.
In my experience, many students come out of calculus treating their scratch-work as a nal
solution, and I have found that this is correlated to students who claim they cannot write proofs.
Most know how to express complete thoughts (in the form of a term paper, say), but they are
not in this mind set when doing math. I feel that using LaTeX helps bridge this divide.
Much of my eort in class is directed toward modeling the proof-writing process. I make every
eort to accommodate dierent learning styles, but nd it dicult to satisfy everyone during a
1 hour lecture. This is why I also support my students learning through extensive oce hours,
and encourage in-class questions. In a course evaluation, my students were asked whether I was
approachable and if I made myself available outside the classroom. My average score for this
question was 4.67/5, and one student made the following comment:
Professor Hill is excellent and the most approachable professor Ive ever had.
His humor is refreshing and his style in the classroom is charming.
In another evaluation a student said,
he was a professor who clearly knew what he was doing and tried to get the
class to engage as much as possible. He was willing to help students a good deal
outside of class for example oering to teach LaTeX.
I am happy to say that I have maintained a relationship with many of my students over the
years. Some still drop by my oce just to talk. One of my calculus students from Oregon
subsequently asked me to write a recommendation for her, as did several of my students at UC
Berkeley. It has been my honor to mentor some truly exceptional people over the years, and I
look forward to the chance to work with many more in the years to come.