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+
\signature{W.~Trevor King}
\address{120 Miller Street \\ Highlands, NJ 07732}
\telephone{+1 215 284 6634}
\begin{document}
-\begin{letter}{Executive Assistant to the Dean \\
- College of Arts and Sciences \\
- Saint Martin's University \\
- 5000 Abbey Way SE \\
- Lacey, WA 98503}
+\begin{letter}{South Puget Sound Community College \\
+ Human Resources Office \\
+ 2011 Mottman Road SW \\
+ Olympia, Washington 98512-6292 }
-\opening{Ms.~Laura Hoff,}
+\opening{Sir or Madam,}
-Thank you for reviewing my application for the position of Assistant
-Professor of Physics at Saint Martin's University. Over my years
+Thank you for reviewing my application for the position of Professor
+of Mathematics at South Puget Sound Community College. Over my years
working on my Ph.D. studies at Drexel University, I have been looking
-forward to teaching physics at a small, undergraduate-oriented liberal
-arts college. While working at a larger research-oriented institution
-has been exciting, I have always been attracted to teaching. I look
-forward to working at a school such as St. Martin's which clearly has
-a strong commitment to teaching excellence and teacher training.
-Besides teaching physics, I am also interested in advancing the
-science of teaching as well as in developing open source experiment
-control procedures. Over the past year I have been active in the
+forward to teaching at an undergraduate-oriented college. I look
+forward to working at a school such as SPSCC which clearly has a
+strong commitment to teaching excellence and teacher training.
+Besides teaching math, I am also interested in advancing the science
+of teaching. Over the past year I have been active in the
\href{http://software-carpentry.org/}{Software Carpentry}
organization, which trains scientists around the world in current
software development and data management techniques. Software
a boot boot camp at the University of Washington, and I look forward
to continuing this outreach in the Puget Sound area.
-I am also looking forward to working at a religious school. I have
-several United Methodist ministers in my family and exposure to
-Catholic traditions from my
-\href{http://www.archmereacademy.com/}{Norbertine high school}. In my
-experience, a religious environment fosters a studied approach to
-learning, a willingness to grapple with big questions, and a respect
-for the diversity of humanity. Students undertaking a liberal arts
-education are well served by each of these qualities.
+While I have not yet been in a position to design my own courses, I
+have enjoyed building some supportive tools. Over the past several
+years, I have developed an open source
+\href{http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Course_website/}{course website
+ framework} and
+\href{http://git.tremily.us/?p=course.git;a=tree;f=asymptote;hb=HEAD}{graphics
+ libraries} for illustrating
+\href{http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Course_website/Mechanics-test.svg}{mechanics},
+\href{http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Course_website/ElectroMag-test.svg}{electricity
+ and magnetism},
+\href{http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Course_website/Circ-test.svg}{circuits},
+and
+\href{http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Course_website/stickfigure-test.svg}{stick
+ figures}. I've also designed the
+\href{https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pygrader}{pygrader} framework for
+collecting and grading homework assignments that students submit via
+email and the \href{https://pypi.python.org/pypi/quizzer}{quizzer}
+framework for managing online quizzes and surveys. These tools will
+make it easier for me to maintain class notes, homework, tests, and
+lecture material, which gives me more time to focus on engaging
+students directly. Downloadable class notes also give students more
+time to focus on the concepts and applications instead of focusing on
+transcription. I look forward to tying these pieces together and
+building cohesive courses to introduce new students to mathematics.
+
+I have always had a strong interest in math, and early in my career I
+was able to devote enough time to the subject to double-major in math
+and physics. I have especially fond memories of my number theory and
+formal logic courses at Colgate. As I advanced through my graduate
+training, there was less time to devote directly to formal math, but I
+taught myself a good deal of statistics in support of my research
+(especially the Gumbel distribution\citep{king10,king13}). Physics
+and math are bound tightly together, and I look forward to returning
+to the analytical side of this pairing.
+
+As a scientist, I feel that teaching itself can be improved through
+the scientific method. By testing the effect of different classroom
+approaches---and by building on the research of my peers---I intend to
+gradually refine my teaching to improve student engagement, critical
+thinking, and content retention. I am especially excited to try
+active learning approaches\citep{hake98,crouch01,prince04}, especially
+thinking-aloud pair problem solving
+(TAPPS\citep{lochhead87,felder09}), which has been shown to increase
+student performance\citep{johnson99}. Of course, not
+\emph{everything} can be measured with sufficient clarity to support
+this approach. Developing quantitative evaluations of student
+learning is tricky, but---at least at a basic level---it is possible.
+Mentioning these difficulties when discussing course organization with
+students will provide jumping-off points for discussing the
+limitations of the statistics, the scientific approach, and the flavor
+of scientific progress, while avoiding confusion about the
+well-understood fundamentals covered in the content of the course
+itself. Several Software Carpentry collaborators (especially
+\href{http://michigancomputes.wordpress.com/}{Cait Pickens}) are
+experts in assessment design and validation, and between their
+experience with standard practices and my talent for software tooling
+and rigorous analysis, I expect we'll develop a robust system for
+monitoring student progress. By promoting this system in our own
+research and SWC outreach, we can also spread the practice of teaching
+research through the wider academic community.
On a more prosaic level, I am excited about moving from the
mid-Atlantic---where I have spent most of my life---to the Northwest.
Starting in the Fall, my wife Emily will be opening a veterinary
surgery practice at the \href{http://olympiapetemergency.net/}{Olympia
- Pet Emergency} hospital just down the street. After years of
-commuting several hours from our current home in New Jersey to Drexel
-in Philadelphia, the chance for jobs that are only two miles apart is
+ Pet Emergency} hospital across town. After years of commuting
+several hours from our current home in New Jersey to Drexel in
+Philadelphia, the chance for jobs that are only a few miles apart is
quite appealing. My wife is originally from Vancouver, Canada, and I
have enjoyed our annual summer trip out to visit with her family. I
also look forward to the drizzly climate, as my Northern European
\end{letter}
+{\footnotesize\bibliography{loi}}
+
\end{document}