Usually, a statistics class is only about numbers and data. However, students in new AP Statistics teacher Kelly Kozma’s class have analyzed Beyoncé lyrics, tested the difference between off-brand and actual products, and learned if they could smell Parkinson’s.
When Kozma was younger, she wanted to be a scrub nurse in a hospital. However, during her senior year of high school, she found a new passion she had never thought about before: teaching.
Due to her GPA and completion of many math courses, Kozma was eligible to be a student helper her senior year. She then began to assist a teacher in a math mentor’s class. By the end of the year, her teacher was letting her teach the course.
“One thing I enjoyed [about teaching] was the content, but people shouldn’t go into teaching because you enjoy the content,” Kozma said. “I think I probably liked the students’ reactions, to finally understanding something that they didn’t like.”
After growing up attending Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Kozma decided to travel to Orlando to pursue her love for teaching. She attended the University of Central Florida where she received her bachelor’s degree in math education. She also has her master’s in math education and a Graduate Mathematics Certificate. She hopes to eventually go on to earn a Ph.D. or an EdD, yet she is unsure of what area she wants to focus on yet.
“I like the idea of Dr. Kozma,” Kozma said. “I’ve always looked at the soft pillow hat when Ph.D. people graduate, and I’m like I want that hat. It’s a dumb goal to have, but I want that pillow hat”.
After falling in love with Orlando, she got her first job as an Algebra II teacher at Colonial High School where she worked for nine years. While teaching high school, she also taught part-time at Valencia College. Once she received her Mathematics Graduate Degree, she then became a full-time professor at the college from 2019 to 2022.
While she enjoyed being able to teach college students, she decided to return to teaching in a high school. In her search for a position to fill, she recognized a familiar name: Mathematics Department Chair Donald Worcester. Worcester had been her professor at the University of Central Florida in 2006, and she decided to reach out. Now that she is working at Trinity, she is excited to make AP Statistics fun for her students.
“[I want to] bring a lot of fun into the stats class with projects and other stuff,” Kozma said. “[It was] not something I got to do while teaching college. It’s just the time. You only see [college students] twice a week for an hour. You don’t have time for projects there. I get to see you guys almost every day.”
When Kozma is not teaching, she enjoys spending time with her husband and three daughters. Her favorite thing to do on the weekends is watch her daughter’s softball tournaments and travel with her team. She also enjoys supporting her alma mater, the University of Central Florida, at their football games.
Since teaching the math mentors class to her algebra classes at Valencia, Kozma’s favorite part of teaching is building relationships with her students. She cannot wait to continue her love for teaching at Trinity.
