About Me

To begin, my name is Nicholas (Nick) Karavas. Some aspects of life that I enjoy to do are golf, tennis, reading, football (watching and playing), research, and doing mathematics when I have time to understand the deepness and uniqueness of certain mathematical concepts. I grew up on the east side of Michigan in a small town called Cass City for the first part of my life, which then my family relocated to Lapeer prior to the beginning of my 8th grade year. I started my college life at Western Michigan and then transferred into Grand Valley at the beginning of my Sophomore year. Prior to the beginning of my junior year, I was studying to become a lawyer but then soon changed over to mathematics.

In February 2016, I decided to take a year off and obtain my BS in Mathematics from Grand Valley State University. When moving back to the east side of the state, I ended up obtaining a job as a long term substitute teacher where I taught Algebra II, Accounting, and Personal Finance. This is when I fell in love with education yet again. Soon after getting into the job, I realized that I wanted to go back to school to obtain my teacher certification which is why I am back at Grand Valley during my Teacher Assisting at Creekside Middle School in Zeeland Public Schools.

The school that I currently am Teacher Assisting at is a 1-to-1 classroom which means that each student has an iPad in which they are able to take home each night. Ms. Maynard's classroom has taken advantage of this 1-to-1 situation and has developed a classroom that is designed on the Backward Classroom Design in which the students are doing instruction at home on their iPads and then coming to class to do group work and hands-on activities. I have used programs such as Desmos and Geogebra in order to develop some type of manipulatives for the students to use both at my long term subbing position and the Teacher Assisting position that I am currently in. I have also used web-based programs such as Socrative, Sacretes, quizziz, etc. to create activities for students to be able to log into and participate as activities that are either accomplished at home or within the classroom. I have always wanted and always will want to include technology into my classroom in order for my students to succeed as much as they possibly can. This also allows students to see the mathematical concepts in a visual sense in order for them to truly  understand the concepts at hand.

The video that is embedded below is one that is truly important to me. Growing up, one of my favorite holidays to spend with family was the Fourth of July. When we were located in Cass City, we used to have parties in which family and friends would come and set up campers and stay at our house for a brief period of time. In 2015, my father and I spent the Fourth of July together in which we went and saw the best firework show that we have ever seen in Bay City, MI. The reason that this is so important to me at this point is that in early August of 2015, my father passed away unexpectedly. This was one of the last times that we had spent together and looking back, I'm happy to say that I will always have that being one of the last memories that I was able to share with him. I know that the video itself may not seem important to most, but for me, it's one of the most charitable moments that I have to this day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiHWMcToPvk

Finally, the following image is one of the few professional images that I have located on my computer. This will be updated as the semester goes on during my Teacher Assisting position.