Mr. Michael Milka

Instructor

mmilka@kamsc.k12.mi.us

Mike Milka joined the KAMSC faculty from the Kalamazoo Public Schools, where he had been teaching mathematics for fifteen years. The last fourteen of those were at Loy Norrix High School, where his most recent teaching experience has been in Geometry and Advanced Placement Calculus AB. Over the years, he has taught almost all topics of high school mathematics offered in KPS, as well as courses in computer programming and literacy.

Mr. Milka graduated from Western Michigan University with a Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education, with a major in Mathematics and minors in English and Computer Science. He has also completed Master's degrees in Mathematics Education and Educational Leadership, both at WMU. Mr. Milka served as the KAMSC math instructor for the summer refresher courses in 1987 and 1988. He also worked at KAMSC on sabbatical research during the 1996-97 and 1997-98 school years.

'I view Mathematics as part of the ongoing human endeavor to understand the intricacies of nature and the universe, and an effort to define the limits of human ingenuity and logic. Like language itself, the purpose of math is to provide clarity and consistency in how people communicate abstract ideas involving quantity, shape, pattern, prediction, and relationship. In Calculus, for instance, the primary goal is to discover the underlying patterns that govern, and are governed by, the behavior of a given function. When we stretch our limits of comprehension, we begin to see patterns that exist beyond the mere formula and its graph. There is a certain beauty in the logic and precision of mathematics, and I enjoy helping students to discover it.'

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