Faculty Spotlight--Andreana Grimaldo

“I have a passion for working with students and pushing them as far as they can go,” said Andreana Grimaldo, a math professor at Quinsigamond Community College.

After more than 20 years at the college, Professor Grimaldo has paired technology with old-school pencil and paper to reach and teach her students on many different levels.

“One of the strengths of QCC is if students need it, they can start at basic math and build their skills up and be successful. You have to have a foundation to build upon,” she said. “It takes hard work, but it is not impossible. I am good at cheering students on and pushing them to their full potential. When they choose to believe they can’t do it, that’s when they fail.”

She incorporates the use of cell phones for certain lessons, for example a graphing app that helps students learn the initial concepts faster. They can see a number of graphs plotted quickly and then do it one their own.

“To do it by hand, it might take a full 50-minute class to graph two or three examples, whereas with the app they can whip through a bunch, learn from it, then do it by hand themselves,” she said.

Professor Grimaldo has spoken at different college conferences about integrating cell phones in a structured manner, to use different apps to support mathematics.

“A lot of students are surprised because other professors tell them to put them away, but I know they have them, so they can use different apps in groups to learn. They still can’t get texts or use them during tests at all, but we use them in the classroom. I experiment constantly on what works and what won’t,” she said.

She also connects with the students through her own experience. After attending Backer College for her associate’s degree, she attended Worcester State University for her bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and her master’s degree of science in applied mathematics.

While earning her bachelor’s and master’s degree, Professor Grimaldo was raising her daughters, working full-time and attended school on nights and weekends. “By the time I graduated with my master’s, I had my third child, so I can relate to many of my students who are working or have a family,” she said. “I explain to them how to do it, tell them they can do it, it cuts out their excuses.”

She started at QCC as an adjunct professor in 1993, while still attending graduate school. For the past year she has been coordinator of the math department, coordinating 13 full-time faculty and 55 adjunct faculty.

“I like working with faculty, coordinating the ordering of all the textbooks, communicating with faculty, making sure everyone is up to speed with the curriculum and syllabus,” she said.

Separate from her position at QCC, Professor Grimaldo has co-authored 13 instructor resource manuals with Professor Denise Robichaud that supported existing textbooks, then they wrote a set of textbooks for developmental math.

Through MyMathLab, a Pearson Education product, they wrote a printed Worktext series that pairs with an interactive eText. This combines a workbook, where students can practice solving problems and show their work, with videos and animations, scripted and narrated by the authors. The developmental math series includes pre-algebra, introductory algebra and intermediate algebra.

She lives in Shrewsbury and said she is familiar with the school systems in the area. “It is good to be up-to-date with what is going on the city,” she said. She and her husband have three grown daughters.

Read more about accelerated math programs and Math Boot Camps at QCC in her recent blog post.