Office - Room 257A 
Administration Building
1-508-854-2731
mwoolhouse@qcc.mass.edu

Office Hours:
Email me for current office hours.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Hello and welcome to my website! In order to reduce any anxieties you may have about taking a math course with me, I’d like to share some information about myself with you.

First of all, you may wonder about my academic background. Having always been interested in math and science because they helped to explain how the world around me worked, I decided to major in chemistry and minor in mathematics in college. I received a bachelor’s degree in these subjects from Anna Maria College when I was in my early twenties. I began my educational career by teaching chemistry and science in high schools. When I was a young adult I decided to acquire a master’s degree in education from Worcester State College. I hoped that this degree would help me to understand how people learn and enable me to better communicate with and teach my students.

After moving to Vermont, I found no positions available in chemistry. I decided to teach mathematics because I had always enjoyed high school math and I was accredited to teach this subject.  Much to my surprise, I enjoyed teaching math much more than science. From this time on, I have exclusively taught mathematics.

After an interruption in my career to have more children, I returned to teaching. I decided that I would like to polish my academic credentials in mathematics. I entered a master’s degree program in mathematics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. At the time that I earned my second master’s degree, I was instructing mathematics full-time at Dean College, a forty-five minute drive from where I live. Additionally, I had a husband, three children with numerous extracurricular activities and a household to run. Finding 20-25 hours a week to study over the length of the four-year program was a challenge. My family’s cooperation, understanding and sacrifices helped to make this advanced degree possible.

One of the strategies that I feel helped me to achieve success in pursuing this degree against great odds was the establishment of a study group among some of my classmates. All the members of this study group managed to survive this arduous master’s degree program. Unfortunately, many others of my classmates did not. Because of my experience, I always encourage my students to form their own study groups.

After teaching at Dean College in Franklin, I moved to Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Massachusetts. I remained at Middlesex for nine years, teaching courses as varied as beginning algebra and calculus 1 & 2. During this time I taught evening and summer classes at Quinsigamond Community College. When a full-time position opened at QCC, I applied and was given the job. In the fall of 2001, I began teaching full-time at Quinsigamond Community College.

In addition to my teaching responsibilities, in the spring of 2001 I was elected President of the New England Mathematical Association for Two-Year Colleges. I enjoy interacting with teaching professionals from other colleges and the opportunity to exchange ideas about the best ways that mathematics may be taught to students in the first two years of college.

This semester I will make a pledge to myself, as I do at the start of every semester, to teach my courses to the very best of my ability. I promise to teach my classes as if one of my own children were present in the class. I hope that you will join me in my classroom and learn to share my enthusiasm for mathematics.

If you have any further questions, I invite you to join me in my office on the second floor of the Administration Building on campus.