Derek Bruff - CV

• Contact Information
• Education
• Experience
• Research Interests
• Publications
• Invited Talks
• Conference Talks
• Courses Taught
• Students Advised
• Talks for Undergraduates
• Workshops on Teaching
• Web Resources on Teaching
• Honors
• Memberships
• Computer Skills

Contact Information

Education

• Ph.D., Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 2003.
• M.S., Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 2000.
• B.S., magna cum laude, Mathematics and Computer Science, Furman University, 1998.

Experience

• Assistant Director, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University, 2005 to present. Duties have included

  • consulting with faculty from a variety of disciplines regarding their teaching,
  • coordinating, publicizing, and facilitating workshops on teaching topics for faculty and graduate students,
  • facilitating working groups on teaching topics such as course design, instructional technology, and the scholarship of teaching and learning for faculty and graduate students,
  • organizing university-wide new faculty and new teaching assistant orientations,
  • developing and administering a teaching certificate program for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows,
  • facilitating university-wide instructional technology decision-making processes,
  • liaising with multiple academic departments (about program-level assessment and accreditation, among other topics),
  • engaging in research on teaching and faculty development,
  • developing a podcast focused on teaching with technology,
  • researching and writing online teaching resource pages,
  • recruiting, hiring, training, and supervising graduate student employees,
  • coordinating use of Center technological resources,
  • designing and expanding the Center's web site, and
  • planning and evaluating the Center's work.
    
    

• Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 2005 to present. Duties include teaching one course per year.

• Vanderbilt Visions VUceptor, The Commons, Vanderbilt University, 2007 to present. Duties include meeting with a cohort of first-year students during orientation week activities and weekly during the academic year to assist in their academic and social acculturation to Vanderbilt.

• Preceptor, Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, 2003-2005.  Duties included

  • teaching and administering multi-section calculus courses,
  • training and supervising graduate student teaching fellows and post-doctoral fellows teaching in the calculus program,
  • managing a tutored study hall program,
  • assisting with the implementation of an online placement exam, and
  • overseeing the design of online tools for teaching calculus.
    
    

• Teaching Consultant, Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University, 2004-2005.  Duties included consulting with faculty and graduate students regarding their teaching and facilitating workshops on teaching topics for graduate students.

• Graduate Assistant, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University, 2002-2003.  Duties included

  • assessing and reporting on the Center's programs,
  • editing and writing the Center's newsletter,
  • redesigning and managing the Center's web site, and
  • developing an online event registration system.
    
    

• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 1999-2002. Duties included teaching one calculus course per semester with full teaching responsibilities, mentoring first-year graduate students preparing to teach, and developing and coordinating a mathematics seminar for undergraduates.

• Master Teaching Fellow, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University, 2001-2002.  Duties included consulting with graduate students regarding their teaching, facilitating workshops on teaching topics for graduate students, and assisting with the organization of a teaching assistant orientation and a graduate student teaching and professional development conference.

Research Interests

• Classroom Response Systems
  
  Classroom response systems, or "clickers," are instructional technologies that enable teachers to rapidly collect and analyze students’ responses to multiple-choice questions.   I am interested in investigating the types of questions and actvities that take advantage of these technologies to productively transform the way instructors use class time.

• The Role of Teaching in the Academic Hiring Process in Mathematics
  
  I have recently conducted a survey examining the role of teaching in the academic hiring process in mathematics, with a particular focus on searches for tenure-track assistant professors.  I am interested in how academic search committees in mathematics collect and evaluate information about candidates' teaching experiences, skills, and philosophies.

• Pre-Class Reading Assignments
  
  In the mathematics courses I teach, I regularly have the students read their textbook and answer several open-ended questions about the reading via an online quiz each night before. I am interested in studying what undergraduate mathematics students are likely to learn by reading their textbooks before class and how these pre-class reading quizzes can help them learn more from their textbooks.

• Wavelets in Nonuniform Settings
  
  My mathematics research involves generalizing traditional wavelet theory and techniques to construct wavelet bases on nonuniform knot sequences.

Publications

• Bruff, D. (under contract) Teaching with classroom response systems: Creating an active learning environment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Walker, D. G., Stremler, M. A., Johnston, J., Bruff, D., & Brophy, S. P. (in press). Case study on the pedagogical impact of tablet PCs as a presentation medium in engineering classrooms. International Journal of Engineering Education.

• Bruff, D. (2007). Clickers: A classroom innovation. National Education Association Advocate, 25(1), 5-8.

• Bruff, D. (2007). Valuing and evaluating teaching in the mathematics faculty hiring process. Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 54(10), 1308-1315.

• Bruff, D. (2007). A TA orientation plenary session on university policies and resources for teaching. In Ross, C., & Dunphy, J. (Eds.), Strategies for teaching assistant and international teaching assistant development: Beyond microteaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Bruff, D. (2003). Wavelets on nonuniform knot sequences. Vanderbilt University Ph.D. Dissertation.

• Bruff, D., & Hardin, D. (2002). Squeezable bases and semi-regular multiresolutions. In Zhou, D.-X., (Ed.), Wavelet analysis: Twenty years' developments. New York: World Scientific Press.

Invited Talks

• Bruff, D. (2008, April). Teaching with clickers: Engaging and assessing students with classroom response systems. Presented at San Joaquin Delta Community College, Stockton, CA.

• Bruff, D. (2007, October). Classroom response systems: An introduction to teaching with clickers. Presented at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA.

• Bruff, D. (2007, September). An introduction to teaching with clickers. Presented at Castleton State College, Castleton, VT.

• Bruff, D. (2004, November). Wavelets: Uniform and otherwise. Presented at Furman University, Greenville, SC.

Conference Talks

• Bruff, D. (2008, May). Connecting in- and out-of-class learning experience through pre-class reading quizzes in statistics. Presented at the 7th London Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Conference, London.

• Bender, H., & Bruff, D. (2008, March). Clickers as tools for engagement: Removing "cloaks of invisibility." Presented at the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group's FridayLive! web conference.

• Bruff, D., Cline, K., Leingang, M., Parker, M., & Zullo, H. (2008, January) Teaching with clickers. Minicourse presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), San Diego, CA.

• Bruff, D. (2007, December). Thoughts on backchannels. Presented at the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group’s FridayLive! web conference.

• Bruff, D. (2007, November). Classroom response systems: Teaching with clickers. Presented at the Middle Tennessee Math Teachers Conference, Nashville, TN.

• Bruff, D. (2007, November). Classroom response systems: Teaching with clickers. Presented at the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group's FridayLive! web conference.

• Bruff, D., Gillian-Daniel, D., Robinson, J., & Wulff, D. (2007, October). Supporting graduate student scholarship of teaching and learning. Presented at the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA.

• Bruff, D. (2007, June). Pre-class reading assignments in mathematics. Presented at the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Institute, Chicago, IL.

• Bruff, D. (2007, March). Supporting faculty use of classroom response systems. Presented at the Southern Regional Faculty and Instructional Development Consortium (SRFIDC) Conference, Chattanooga, TN.

• Bruff, D. (2007, January). Valuing and evaluating teaching in the mathematics faculty hiring process. Presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), New Orleans, LA.

• Bruff, D. (2007, January). What are students likely to learn by reading their textbooks before class? Presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), New Orleans, LA.

• Bruff, D. (2006, October). Supporting faculty use of classroom response systems. Presented at the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Annual Conference, Portland, OR.

• Armstrong, P., Bruff, D., Johnston, J., & Pingree, A. (2006, October). Integrating SoTL into a teaching certificate program. Poster presented at the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Annual Conference, Portland, OR.

• Bruff, D. (2005, March). Multiwavelet bases centered on nonuniform knot sequences. Presented at the Southeastern Section Meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), Bowling Green, KY.

• Bruff, D., & Leingang, M. (2005, January). Advantages, challenges, and dividends of online placement. Presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Atlanta, GA.

• Bruff. D. (2004, October). Multiwavelet bases centered on nonuniform knot sequences. Presented at the Southeastern Section Meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), Nashville, TN.

• Bruff, D. (2004, May). Constructing wavelets centered on nonuniform knot sequences. Presented at the International Conference on Computational Harmonic Analysis, Nashville, TN.

• Bruff, D. (2003, January). Semi-regular multiresolutions generated by minimially supported scaling vectors. Presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Baltimore, MD.

• Bruff. D. (2002, November). Semi-regular multiresolutions generated by minimially supported scaling vectors. Presented at the 6th Wavelet Ideal Data Representation Center Workshop, Columbia, SC.

• Bruff, D. (2002, August). An undergraduate seminar in mathematics. Presented at MathFest, the annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Burlington, VT.

Courses Taught

• Integrated Precalculus and Calculus I, II
• Calculus I, II
• Accelerated Calculus I, II
• Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus for the Social Sciences
• Probability and Statistics for the Engineering Sciences
• Theory and Practice of Teaching Probability (graduate-level)
• Introduction to Wavelets and Their Applications (graduate-level)

Students Advised

• William Meyerson, Senior Thesis, Harvard University, 2003-2004.
• Daniel Goodman, Undergraduate Research, Harvard University, 2004-2005.

Talks for Undergraduates

I have given a number of mathematics talks for undergraduates at various colleges and universities. Titles for these talks have included the following.

• "How to Win at Monopoly"
• "Wavelets, Uniform and Otherwise"
• "The Incredible Shrinking Data"
• "Two's Company, Three's a Conundrum"
• "And the Winner Is...?"
• "Huh?"
• "Math, Music, MP3's, and More"

Workshops on Teaching

I have designed and facilitated a variety of workshops on teaching issues for faculty and graduate students for the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and Department of Mathematics and the Harvard University Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning and Department of Mathematics. Topics for these workshops have included the following.

Web Resources on Teaching

Following is a list of the teaching guides I have had a substantial part in writing for the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching's web site.

Honors

• Mathematical Association of America Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) Fellow, 2004-2005.
• Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Fall 2003, Spring 2004.
• Vanderbilt University Department of Mathematics B. F. Bryant Prize for Excellence in Teaching, 2002.
• Vanderbilt University Graduate Fellowship, 1998-2002.
• Furman University Bradshaw-Feaster Medal for General Excellence, 1998.
• Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, 1996-1998.
• Phi Beta Kappa Collegiate Honor Society, 1997.

Memberships

• Professional & Organizational Development (POD) Network
• American Mathematical Society (AMS)
• Mathematical Association of America (MAA)

Computer Skills

• Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access
• Dreamweaver, Fireworks, HTML, and CSS
• Mathematica, MATLAB, and LaTeX
• Classroom Responses Systems (TurningPoint, eInstruction, Interwrite PRS)
• Course Management Systems (Blackboard, others)

Page maintained by Derek Bruff (derek.bruff [at] vanderbilt.edu).

Last updated December 8, 2007.

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