Rate My Professor site commends alum

By: Nick Mason, Staff Writer

Community College of Baltimore County in Essex Professor Anthony Calise, a Towson alum, was recently ranked as Rate My Professor’s number one “highest rated junior and community college professor” for his performance last year.

Calise graduated from Towson University in January 2002 with a degree in mathematics.

“Just make sure you have a love for not just math, but teaching in general,” Calise said. “It’s something you have to have a passion for. There are challenges every day and you have to come up with solutions to problems on a daily basis.”

During his stay at TU, Calise said he enjoyed the teaching styles of his professors in the education department.

The department’s renown is what led Calise to choose Towson for his undergraduate degree, but Towson Professor Emeritus Lawrence Shirley, who taught mathematics education, taught him how to make math interesting.

“He would sometimes dress up as old mathematicians,” Calise said.

Calise has been teaching high school for 16 years and is in his 10th year as a college professor. He has taught adjunct classes at TU and currently teaches at Owings Mills High School and CCBC Essex.

Calise uses a wide variety of tools and techniques when teaching his students.

“I definitely try to make everything relevant to their majors,” explained Calise. “I try to tailor it to their program and incorporate actual examples instead of doing math problems they’ll never use.”

Calise provides his students with outside resources as well. His website includes notes, videos and practice exams. The site has reached over ten million people from every state in the country and other nations around the worl.

The site also has links to math that is used in movies, films and other resources that both students and other teachers can use.

Calise spends about 30 hours a week teaching in classrooms, and another 35-40 hours outside of class to grade homework and to prepare educational structures.

He teaches statistics, pre-calculus, calculus, intermediate math and discrete mathematics. On his website, he also offers additional resources, lectures, SAT prep and even math jokes.

“Honestly, Mr. Calise is the best teacher I have ever seen,” said one student on Rate My Professors. “Please take his class, you will not regret [it] because you did. Trust me. This is not a joke.”

 

 

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