Nathaniel Barlow

Nate Barlow teaches applied math courses and his research is in mathematical fluid dynamics, series resummation, and asymptotic analysis. Fun Fact: Nate has a difficult time doing work while listening to music that has words in it. Currently he is making his way through the catalog of Booker T & the M.G.'s.

1. How do you teach or model applied critical thinking?

Consistency checks: Solve a problem with multiple methods to make sure you get the same answer. Decomposing the problem into small chunks: This allows my tiny brain to even start a problem, and validate each piece individually Verification: If you take an integral, make sure the derivative gives you back what you started with. If you take a partial fraction, add them up to make sure you get what you started with. If you solve a differential equation, put the answer back in to make sure that 0=0.

2. Why do you think applied critical thinking is important in your domain or role?

If I want my students to continue being critical thinkers, I expect them to be critical of me. Also, as a teacher, I want to build trust with the students. I typically leverage previous trust in an old method to show that a new method leads to the same answer, through a judiciously chosen “calibration” problem. We then have a seed of trust to work from as we explore problems that can only be solved via the new method. This also models the best practice of testing or being critical of new techniques or environments in this way, which is useful for when students encounter such problems “in the wild”.

3. Can you share a story where quality applied critical thinking was key to your success?

Quite frequently, consistency checks fail and cause my colleagues and I to return to the drawing board, leading to later successes.

4. How do you use critical thinking in other areas of your life outside of RIT? And any last critical thoughts? What is this "life outside of RIT" that you speak of?

Why? Am I about to die? When I click the submit button, will my computer explode? Ok, well if that’s the case then please tell my wife and kids I love them and …wait a sec, I think I’m reading this wrong. I suppose the question meant, are there any “further” critical thoughts that I wish to share? Or maybe “last” is a fine word to use, given the context? Maybe I’m being too critical!