Sasha Fajerstein

Sasha Fajerstein is a math teacher at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois—one of the highest ranked secondary schools in the nation. This pioneering mathematics educator, who is passionate about integrating new teaching methods and technologies into the classroom, recently collaborated with her colleagues at New Trier to develop and pilot an interactive high school geometry textbook for the iPad. She co-presented a talk about the iPad textbook project at the 2015 Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference and also shared her insights into math education as a presenter at the Metropolitan Mathematics Club of Chicago. After earning her B.S. in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sasha spent a year teaching English in Costa Rica. Upon returning to the U.S., she served as a math teacher at Nichols Middle School in Evanston, Illinois.

Posts by Sasha Fajerstein

How to Foster a Positive Relationships with Math

posted by Sasha Fajerstein More often than not, when I tell people I am a high school math teacher, the response I get sounds something like “Wow, that sounds awful. I hated math in school” or “Oh. I am so bad at math!” At the very beginning of each school year, I give my students […]

Spatial Reasoning

posted by Sasha Fajerstein As teachers, we constantly remind students about the importance of mathematics if you want to be an engineer, chemist, architect, archaeologist, astronaut, astrologist, biologist, and many more. What people don’t realize is that spatial skills are key in transforming mathematics into three-dimensional objects with limitless uses. Spatial reasoning is essentially the […]

“New Math” and Logical Reasoning

posted by Sasha Fajerstein Charlie has been accused of pulling the fire alarm on Friday, 12/5. Help him argue that he is innocent. The facts: The fire alarm was pulled in the student cafeteria at 11:55 am Charlie has math period 5 with Ms. Smith Charlie was in math class for the ENTIRE period on […]