Office Artifacts: Leslie Dietiker
Wheelock College prof’s collection reflects her love of math, toys, and Star Trek
Click on the icons above to see more of what Leslie Dietiker displays in her office.
Earlier in Leslie Dietiker’s career, she spent 17 years teaching high school mathematics in the San Francisco Bay area. It was during this time, she says, that she experienced a transformation—one that made her question why math education so often follows what she calls a “drill and kill philosophy.”
While elementary classrooms tend to emphasize group-oriented hands-on learning, Dietiker, an associate professor of mathematics education at Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, took note of a widespread belief: that middle and high school math is abstract and should be lecture-based. Her curriculum work and research, however, have shown quite the opposite.
Dietiker is the lead author and editor of several middle and high school textbooks designed to make math more engaging. She also teaches future educators at Wheelock how to approach math instruction in ways that make it enjoyable, inviting, and “more personally meaningful for children’” she says.
“Students thrive in situations in which they get to pose questions like, ‘Can you make the shape in a certain way?’” she explains. “And then they can mathematically pursue the question, which then brings in all sorts of angles and questions about geometry.”
A visit to her office demonstrates what she means. On a table sits a bifold mirror, whose reflection can create cool geometric shapes on paper, and a Reuleaux triangle, a curved triangle with constant width, meaning the distance between any two parallel sides remains the same, just like a circle. These tools, she says, encourage visitors to her office to relax, disarm, and help discover how fun math can be.
The pi-symbol curtains also make a statement.
“I just try to make people see that you can embrace it—you don’t have to be embarrassed about loving math or science,” Dietiker says. “Some of the students that come in here are a little bit worried about how they’re going to be perceived in the world. And I’m trying to let them know that there’s a choice—you can embrace who you are.
“I think that’s an important message to share.”
In our Office Artifacts series, BU Today highlights interesting artifacts professors and staff display in their offices. Do you have a suggestion about someone we should profile? Email amlaskow@bu.edu.
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