Joan S. Kessler

Joan Kessler has been teaching mathematics at the high school and college levels for over 25 years. After teaching a variety of courses at the Community College of Rhode Island, she joined the mathematics department at Johnson & Wales University in Providence and earned the rank of Associate Professor. She developed the Mathematics Honors Program, introduced the use of the graphing calculator into the mathematics curriculum, and served on many committees. A Merit Award winner for each year of the program years, she also received the Faculty Professional Development award in 1994. While at Johnson & Wales, she was elected President of NEMATYC in 1995. After moving to Illinois is 1996, she joined the faculty at Elgin Community College in Illinois during which time she won the ICTCM award for Excellence and Innovation for the development of an online College Algebra course, the first in Illinois. While at ECC she was a member of the President's Task Force on Distance Learning, a member of Internet Educators Committee, and was the 1998 keynote speaker for IMACC. In 2000 she was appointed as the Distance Learning Coordinator at the Ida Crown Academy in Chicago and was affiliated with the University of San Diego as an online instructor.

She received her Bachelor's degree in both Mathematics and Mathematics Education from the University of Rhode Island, and holds a Master's degree in Mathematics from Rhode Island College. As a lifelong learner Joan has earned post graduate credits in mathematics, instructional technology, and mathematics education from universities including Aurora University, Portland State University, University of Miami, Sam Houston State University, and National Louis University.
A speaker at many local, regional, an international conferences and workshops including AMATYC, ICTCM, FETC, and T³, she has presented papers on Mathematics and the Web, Distance Learning, and Enhancing a Traditional Classroom with Web-based Mathematics, and was an invited speaker in Hangzhou, China at the ICME 2000 conference. She has been a member of the Program Committee for ICTCM, is a T³ Discovery Workshop instructor for Texas Instruments, a member of the AMATYC Distance Learning Task Force, an ambassador for Waterloo Maple, and a writer for Interact Math Tutorial Software for Addison Wesley Longman publishers.
Joan served as Vice President of the Educational Division of Theorist Interactive, LLC, the producers of the LiveMath ^TM software product line until 8/2002 and continues to strive for excellence in technology in mathematics education. As a Nationally Board Certified Teacher of Mathematics, Joan now teaches in the Broward School District at the College Academy @ Broward Community College Central. This unique dual enrollment program is the most successful program of its kind nationwide.