Shifra Adler

Title/s:  Clinical Assistant Professor, Mathematics

Office #:  Maguire 230

Phone: 312.915.7963

Email: sadler@LUC.edu

Hometown

Wilton, Maine

What attracted you to Arrupe College?

Arrupe’s social justice mission and commitment to setting our students up for success fill an important need in the post-secondary landscape. I have seen how difficult the transition from high school to college can be for students and am daily impressed by all of the thoughtful ways that Arrupe staff and faculty create an environment where each student gets the support they need to become the college student that they want to be.

Talk a little about the classes you teach.

At Arrupe, I teach many levels of mathematics, from the Fundamentals of Math through Calculus I and Statistics. Through each of these courses the common thread that I examine with students is the variety of ways in which mathematical relationships connect familiar ideas and patterns. I want students to leave my classes seeing how the new concepts that they have learned connect to the world around them and to their prior understanding of mathematics.

What's you favorite part about teaching? and the biggest challenge?

My favorite part about teaching is watching students make mathematics their own. Seeing a student who initially struggled or described themselves as “not a math person” come to see their own strengths and agency in working with math concepts is the most important challenge and the greatest joy for me as a teacher.

Degrees

Cambridge University (BA), University of Chicago (MA), Northwestern University (MSEd)

Program Areas

Mathematics education, mathematics learner identities, disability justice in mathematics, project based learning, multimodal learning

Courses Taught