Associate professor of education Jack Piel is among the five finalists for the 2011 Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence, UNC Charlotte’s top teaching honor. The award recipient will be announced at a reception Friday, Sept. 16. Campus News is featuring each finalist for this award in alphabetical order.

Jack Piel joined the College of Education’s Department of Reading and Elementary Education in 1988. Nominators note that prospective teachers, as well as teachers working toward advanced degrees, are fortunate to have Piel as their instructor for human development and mathematics education. His depth and the richness of his expertise in child development and learning provide him with a unique basis for modeling and helping students to integrate an understanding of how children benefit from different instructional skills. 

Piel dispels students' aversions to math by helping them think computationally in ways that have eluded them in the past. It is a common occurrence for his students to lose their phobia toward math and to be transformed into math enthusiasts, as one commented: “Prior to this course I had a fear of math and wanted to primarily stick with younger grades to teach because I thought I could not teach older kids math. He truly gave me a love for math and at the age of 20 helped me overcome my fear. I now strive to be the teacher that explains why and how and to understand the developmental level of a child rather than just tell them to do this and to teach them for the test.”

According to Piel, his philosophy of teaching and learning has led to a summer semester where his students serve as mathematics teachers.  What they learn in the beginning of the class, they put into practice as faculty of a summer camp for children called Math CAMMP (Computer Applications and Manipulative Mathematics Programs).  This year marks the program’s 20th anniversary, and Piel and his colleague estimate that more than 2,000 elementary education majors and 12,000 elementary school students have participated.

Every other year, Piel takes a group of 20 pre-service students to Germany for eight weeks.  In a partnership with Pedagogische Hochschule in Ludwigsburg, he teaches the required curriculum while students have the opportunity to interact with people from other cultures and to learn firsthand what it is like to be different. 

A colleague concluded, “Dr. Piel's students leave his courses thoroughly prepared, appropriately confident in their ability to enter the teaching profession and enthusiastic about their future in helping elementary students develop a genuine love and ability for learning. He is an extraordinary teacher.”