Nitchada Kamlue

TEACHING

Western Michigan University, Michigan, USA
Teaching Assistant

Course Taught

  • Spring 2025: MATH 1520 Early Mathematical Reasoning (In-person) | Taught WMU prospective Elementary Teachers.
  • Spring 2023, Fall 2022: MATH 1140 Using Data for Life Decisions (In-person) | Taught WMU students across all disciplines.

Teaching Mentors

Since graduating with my bachelor’s degree in Secondary Mathematics Education, I am grateful to all my mentors at WMU for providing me with the knowledge and skills needed to teach elementary school mathematics. This area of study has become a foundational part of my dissertation topic. I look forward to teaching and learning mathematics across all grade levels to support students in exercising their Rights as Learners (Kalinec-Craig, 2017), embracing Rough-Draft Thinking (Jansen, 2020), and valuing learning from struggles (e.g., Boaler, 2024; Kamlue, 2024; Warshauer, 2015).

  • Fall 2023 to Spring 2025: Dr. Kate Kline—The mentor who laid the foundation for my teaching and learning in elementary mathematics education. We used Big Ideas of Early Mathematics as the required textbook for the MATH 1520 course at WMU. Dr. Kline was the one who designed the first math teaching methods in the new course series for elementary teachers (MATH 1520, MATH 2530, and MATH 2540). She also taught me MATH6510: Studies in Teaching Elementary School Mathematics prior to my years of teaching at WMU. In that course, she challenged me to consider how we could support elementary students in experiencing productive struggle in their learning. At the time, I could not imagine how young children would learn from their struggles. However, through my ongoing research—investigating the productive struggle of prospective teachers—with Dr. Laura and our research teams, I have begun to see the potential for learners of all ages, from kindergarten to adulthood, to benefit from struggles that are within their zone of proximal development (ZPD; Vygotsky, 1978). With appropriate support from knowledgeable peers and instructors, all learners can engage in struggle that has the potential to become productive struggle for their learning.
  • Fall 2022 to Spring 2023: Dr. Gina Kling—The mentor who introduced me to learning and implementing various tasks that could improve our lives (e.g., planning for our retirement). Working with her also increased my awareness of providing students with agency to work collaboratively and claim their own mistakes, rather than having us point them out individually or directly. Over time, I began to see the connection to one of the Rights of the Learner from Kalinec-Craig (2017)—learners have a right to claim their mistakes. In the MATH 1140 course at WMU, we used Thinking Mathematically as our required textbook and StatCrunch as our required software tool for learning.

Course Observations

In Fall 2021, I observed Dr. Theresa Grant teaching MATH 1500: Number Concepts for Elementary/Middle School Teachers—the final section offered to the WMU prospective elementary teachers cohort before transitioning to a new curriculum. In Spring 2022, I observed her teaching and refining a new mathematics teaching methods course, MATH 1520: Early Mathematical Reasoning, with Dr. Kate Kline, who created the course. From Summer 2022 to Fall 2022, I continually observed Dr. Grant as she created, developed, and taught a new sequence of mathematics teaching methods courses for prospective elementary teachers, including MATH 2530: Number and Computation I.

In Spring 2023, I observed Dr. Gina Kling teaching MATH 1140: Using Data for Life Decisions and reflected on my own teaching, planning adjustments to my teaching style for the same course that semester.

Similarly, although I had already observed Dr. Grant teaching MATH 1520: Early Mathematical Reasoning when it was first offered in Spring 2022, I continued my learning by observing Dr. Kate Kline teach the same course with the latest updates to all teaching materials in Spring 2025, just before I taught the course myself.

For MATH 1140 and MATH 1520 for GYO students, with support from Dr. Kate Kline and Dr. Gina Kling, I helped create accelerated courses designed to meet their needs in teaching and learning elementary school mathematics. That was my experience teaching school staff asynchronously and partially synchronously, with approximately 40 to 60 students in one of those semesters.

Math Talent By Dr. Ying, Bangkok, Thailand
Full-Time Mathematics Teacher

March 2017 – March 2018: I taught mathematical concepts using visual methods to students from Kindergarten through 9th grade. Each class consisted of no more than four students.

Chulalongkorn University Demonstration Secondary School, Bangkok, Thailand
Student Teacher

October 2016 – March 2017: I taught mathematics to Grade 8 and Grade 11 students.

Buddhajak Wittaya School, Bangkok, Thailand
Student Teacher

May 2016 – September 2016: I taught mathematics to Grade 7 and Grade 11 students. I also helped host a Math Club with other mathematics teachers and was a homeroom teacher assistant for Grade 9 students.

Bangkok, Thailand
Private Mathematics Tutor

June 2013 – March 2017: During my weekends, I provided one-on-one mathematics tutoring for students in grades 5–12.