Meet Dustin Snyder, a new math teacher this year at Sierra Pacific High School This year will be Snyder’s seventh year of teaching. Before coming to SP, he started out teaching and then had the opportunity to work as a football coach at the University of Montana.
Snyder explains the similarities between teaching and coaching: “In both, you grow every day, you learn little things, and you apply them everywhere. And when you fail, you learn from mistakes in order to keep moving forward.”
He continues, saying how the ways he coaches and teaches go hand in hand. “I’m very calm, and in the moment – I think communication is key. And ultimately, if you build relationships with people, that’s when they learn best.”
Snyder was inspired to teach because of his teachers growing up. Since his parents did not have an education beyond high school, they taught him to value his education. He says he knew education was where he wanted to go because, “I love working with people, and I enjoy doing hard things. I think teaching is the perfect mix of that.”
Similar to many math classes on campus, Snyder structures his class with a mixture of group and independent learning. Students have groups of three, and all of the students participate in randomized groups every day. While some students dislike group learning, it allows students to ask questions with their fellow classmates. Plus, it encourages students to work together to find the answers.
Snyder teaches the majority of the lessons; however, he also gives students opportunities to discover and infer the “whys” of how math works. His philosophy is that, “Students have to be willing to work…and if they don’t work in their teams, they’re choosing to not learn.”
Makayla Shanen, a student in Snyder’s Integrated Math 3 class, says, “I like his teaching on days where I understand his methods, when I don’t understand them it’s harder to enjoy, but he offers time outside of class, which is very helpful.” Shanen adds that she practices on the problems that are difficult to understand at home, which allows her to do well in Snyder’s class, even when classwork is harder.
She says that she would recommend Snyder’s class to other students because he keeps the class environment at a steady pace and that he is a helpful teacher.
Snyder’s first impression of Sierra Pacific was that our school is a campus culture where students actually want to be. He says his favorite thing about SP students is that “[they] are willing to go outside of their comfort zones.” In his class, he says that he appreciates how students work well in different groups instead of only working well with their friends.
Snyder is also involved in the campus community. You can often find him supporting students at football games and other events. He encourages students to be involved in campus culture: through clubs, sports, and events and he prioritizes being there for his students.
