This school year, Robinson is welcoming Robert Heinsen as our newest addition to the mathematics department. This is his seventh-year teaching. While Heinsen grew up in Tampa, he has never lived in South Tampa before.
“The current goal is to become part of the community,” Heinsen said. “I’m still learning about the area. I’m learning about the community and I’m learning about the school. I want to start making this home.”
This year, Heinsen is excited to be teaching four classes of Pre-IB Algebra Honors and HL math.
“With the freshmen, they’re new. So, there’s a lot of energy and a lot of excitement, but they’re also very much still growing up. I still have to teach them, like, what it means to be an IB student. For the juniors and seniors in HL math, it’s just, it’s a lot of fun because we get to just be math nerds during that time,” Heinsen said.
In addition to teaching this year, Heinsen has opted to run Mu Alpha Theta or Math Club, which last year placed fourth at regionals. Gavin Schmid, a senior and the president of the club this year, has expressed his excitement at having Heinsen join them.
“I think he’s a great teacher. He put whiteboards all along the room, and it’s great because we get to work together on practice problems and help each other in our learning,” Schmid said. “He’s very committed and helpful, and I’m sure we’re going to have a great year.”
In 2024, Heinsen received the Robert Noyce Teacher Fellowship among 20 others, a five-year program whose goal is to support experienced K-12 STEM teachers to become teacher leaders in high-need school districts. He has spent the last year earning a master’s in education for the program, but this year he begins the real work that it was created for.
“For the next four years, since it is a five-year program, my task is to try to build programs that will help underprivileged students in the community. My goal is to figure out what that’s going to look like, and how I can incorporate as many students at Robinson into that as possible,” Heinsen said.
