Tate Shippen

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I am a full time high school math teacher at Hamilton Wenham High, located in Hamilton, MA and am currently finishing up my ninth year there. Over the past nine years, I’ve taught everything from Algebra to Calculus, including two years where I also taught a block of Pre-Algebra in our middle school in addition to my high school courses. Most recently, I’ve taken over the AP Statistics program at our school and I am looking forward to having three sections of AP Stats next year with two sections of Geometry Honors. I also currently coach the ultimate frisbee team, as well as the high school and middle school math teams. I’ve been heavily involved with bringing technology into our school classrooms, leading professional development seminars on various ways I use technology in my classroom. Last year I was awarded a $25,000 grant through a local group called the Ed-Fund to create a 3D Printer Lab at our school, which has been very exciting as I’ve been incorporating it into cross-curricular projects for my Geometry Class and our Mod-Tech classes!

I attribute many of the extra things that I can bring into my classroom to the excellent education that I received from the Math Department from St. Michael’s. Not only did my professors model excellent teaching in the classroom, they also provided me with the mathematical education I needed to excel at my job. For instance, in my Geometry class when I teach inductive reasoning and patterns, I’ve been able to go beyond the curriculum and include topics such as the Triangular Numbers thanks to what I learned Dr. Ellis-Monaghan’s Number Theory class. I’ve been able to add historical context in my lessons thanks to many of the things I learned in my History of Mathematics course taught by Dr. Ashline (I still even reference our book from that class!). When teaching logic statements, I’ve brought computer programing into my classroom that I learned from my Computer Science course at SMC. The instruction I received from the math department at St. Mike’s provided me with the wide breadth of mathematical knowledge that enabled me to be the teacher I am today.

My experience at St. Mike’s has even helped me go beyond the classroom – thanks to the experience I gained from responding to emergencies while I was on St. Michael’s Fire & Rescue, I’ve been chosen to chaperone our school’s biannual trip to Peru and Machu Picchu four times! I love my job, and I’ve got St. Mike’s to thank for a lot of my success!