The Presidential Award means that I am doing something right. I knew I wanted to become a mathematics teacher when I was in the ninth grade. Some 25 years later, my dream is still coming true. I love helping students “get it,” especially when they have not “got it” in the past. I love mentoring student teachers. I also love collaborating with my colleagues, learning from them each day. Winning this award reminds me that I have helped students, student teachers, and my colleagues. I am very humbled.

David Hartman Lincoln, NE | 7-12, Mathematics, 2011

The official biography below was current at the time of the award.

David Hartman has taught mathematics at Lincoln Southwest High School for 10 years, since it first opened in 2002. He spent the first 7 years of his teaching career at Robin Mickle Middle School. David serves as Mathematics Department Chair at Lincoln Southwest High School and primarily teaches a range of algebra classes. He mentors student teachers from area colleges as well as beginning mathematics teachers in his building. He leads a professional development course for newly hired Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) K-12 teachers, and he develops and leads staff development workshops for secondary mathematics teachers in LPS. David also teaches graduate courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). From 2004 to 2009, David worked as a graduate research assistant and teaching assistant for the Math in the Middle Institute-Partnership, a UNL project funded by the National Science Foundation to educate and support teams of middle-level mathematics teachers to become leaders in their schools. David has a B.S., summa cum laude, in mathematics and an M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction from Doane College, and he has a Ph.D. in educational studies from UNL. He is a certified secondary mathematics teacher.

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