Come, learn math with me!  

• No registration required.
• All for FREE!  
• Click on the Math Topics tab located on the Navigation bar at the top.

Hello! My name is Gowri Meda. I am an Upper School math teacher at the Oregon Episcopal school (OES), an independent school in Southwest Portland, Oregon.

I received my M.A. (1992)  & Ph.D (1997) in mathematics from Bryn Mawr College, PA.

Prior to joining OES in 2016, I taught college-level mathematics for 19 years; 2 years full-time at The Colorado College, 2 years full-time at Pacific University, 1 year full-time at the University of Arizona and 14 years part-time at Portland Community College, Rock Creek.

My teaching approach to mathematics is influenced and informed by the math education work by Dr. Hung-Hsi Wu, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at University of California, Berkeley. My passion for mathematics and math education motivated me to reach out to a larger audience with several of my math videos based on Wu’s work, that I post on this website.

With my videos, I strive to teach the underlying math reasoning behind every principle or skill. This way, we bring meaning and a deep understanding to every routine to complex math calculation, and thus math makes complete sense. To me, it is not enough to teach students only the process to get an answer: When we emphasize rote-memorization of steps of a math procedure or algorithm, students may show all the correct steps to arrive at the answer and yet may not understand the logic and reasoning supporting the procedure or formula.  Rather we must teach with depth and reasoning and subsequently assess student learning so that our students are able to clearly explain the logic behind every step of their work. This implies we must teach math with age-appropriate rigor using precise definitions motivated by mathematical intuition, clear reasoning, carefully chosen examples that illustrate the reasoning, correct arrangement of topics that respect the natural connection between topics, and insightful applications.

Below is a quote of Dr. Hung-Hsi Wu on what it means to know mathematics. I use it here with his permission.

“In mathematics, to say you know a fact means you know 

• what it says precisely,
• what it says intuitively,
• why it is true,
• why it is worth knowing,
• in what way it can be put to use,
• the natural context in which it appears.

In short, knowing a fact means being able to tell the whole story about this fact rather than just a few sound bites.”