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Differences Between Teaching

College and Public School with

Mr. Matt Webb

Written by Courtney Coats

Interviewed Matt Webb

Mr. Matt Webb is a professor at Brigham

Young University-Idaho, and he teaches math

courses to elementary education students. His

goal is to help future teachers understand

math at a deeper level so that they can

effectively teach their future students.

What made you decide to teach college? college students are perfect, but generally better.

What do you think is a benefit of teaching a
As I became aware of how rich and wonderful specialized subject?
and positive a well taught math class could be, I want-
I think a person does get a satisfaction of
ed to participate in helping others come to know what learning themselves, and teaching a specialized
I had come to know.
subject pushes the teacher to know and therefore to

learn at some level.
How is classroom management different between

college and public school? Are there any challenges of teaching a more

Classroom management is different on the specialized subject verses a broader curriculum,

scale of intensity. All classes of students exhibit like elementary school?

similar behavior, but the degree of cooperation differs. Maybe a trade off as one who loves learning is

More specifically, the degree to which they are that you come to know a subject well, when there are

inclined to be off task and the degree to which they other things you have less time for.
are difficult to get on task differs. College students

tend to get off task less, and when they do, usually it How do you motivate students to challenge

only requires a gentle nudge to get them back on themselves and work harder to improve their

track. If I had to describe the differing degree of grades?

difficulty, I would give high school students a score of The work itself has to have some meaning and

75 and college students a 10. the student has to see this meaning and believe it for

What do you think is the biggest difference themselves. In mathematics education we have

learned that the less motivated students will engage
between teaching at college and teaching at public better in authentic tasks when some aspect of the work
school?
is interesting to them.
The biggest difference is management, and

this is closely followed by interest in learning. I

believe it is true that when you are not compelled to

learn, but have chosen to learn, the learning-teaching

experience is better. Even so, this does not mean that

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