Going into advanced algebra, I dreaded massive equations and hour-long explanations that would only serve to make things more difficult. After all, that’s what normal algebra was like, and this is advanced. But what actually happened was far from expected, and it is all because of my teacher, Ms. Bower.

In previous math classes, the lesson would often go until the bell rang, and force students to learn the rest of the lesson at home without help followed by an hour of tedious homework. But in Ms. Bower’s math class, we always finished with a few minutes to spare. Lessons would start off with just a single definition, occasionally one more, followed by a simple example. Each example would get progressively harder, leading into the final problem. It was never straight to the most difficult end result. She teaches in a way that gets progressively harder. This makes it much easier to learn difficult topics. These lessons were straight and to the point, without extra stuff we would not need for the tests and quizzes. Also, homework was never too far over the top. Ms. Bower never gave us more than half an hour assuming we worked hard.

Lessons were taught on a Smartboard, which is an electronic white board, and she would walk us through each problem, frequently asking if anyone was confused. The lessons were planned well, and helped to make a very difficult class into a class that wasn’t so bad after all.

Halfway through the class, we would have what Ms. Bower called a checkpoint. During the checkpoint, we would have a few minutes to ask whatever question we thought necessary or just relax a moment before it was back to work. Often Ms. Bower would tell a funny story about a summer job or a marathon she ran. These stories helped lighten the dull mood of math and help excite students enough to complete the task at hand.

Another thing that makes Ms. Bowers’s teaching style superior is before each major test, there are two open note quizzes to check what we know. These served as indicators of what we needed to practice and were an easy A for those who bothered took good notes and paid attention. When something was not understood, Ms. Bower always offered to stay after school to help out anyone who needed it. Even though I had never asked for extra help, it was common to see others making arrangements with Ms. Bower to get help with a hard topic.

Christina Bower helped to make math easy, she gave individual help when asked, and she helped keep the classroom lively. These are reasons why I am nominating her as a teacher of the year.