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The Packback team is so excited to welcome the newest member of the Packback Professor Advisory Board, Martin Schray.
Martin is equal parts Passionate Professor, Experienced Technologist and Entrepreneurship Guru, and has inspired many of Chicago’s best and brightest (both college students and life-long learners) to follow their goals in tech and entrepreneurship. He has helped many Chicago startups leverage Microsoft programs like BizSpark, that help them save money through free access to the cloud and Microsoft software.
In addition to his role as an adjunct professor at DePaul University and The Illinois Institute of Technology, Martin is a Senior Technical Evangelist for Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, he worked at three software and consulting startup companies as well as working in the IT organizations of a manufacturing company and legal firm. As he teaches his students about technology, he pulls experience from his 20+ years in the IT, consulting and software industries to give his class insight into the real-world applications of what they’re learning in the classroom.
Martin is a supporter of active learning in the classroom and empowers his students to learn through teaching one another. He was an early adopter and pioneer of Packback Answers in his classroom, and recently became a member of the Packback Professor Advisory Board to help us continue to make the Packback Answers platform work better for students and professors. He’s an advocate for making higher education more interactive, engaging and valuable for students, and we couldn’t be happier to have him supporting the Packback team!
We asked Martin to tell us a little about himself and his passion for teaching and you can read his answers below:
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Packback: Can you tell us a little bit about why you got into education?
Martin Schray: Turns out I love teaching people about things. Initially, I wanted to give back in recognition of some of the great and life changing professors I had. So I tried to do what they did.
PB: What is the most rewarding part of being a professor?
MS: The most rewarding part is when I have explained a particularly hard concept, and I see the lightbulbs turn on above my students’ heads when they get it.
PB: What are you most proud of in your teaching career?
MS: The number of students I have taught that went onto to do something cool, great and of interest in the field of computing.
PB: What are some of the most interesting problems you personally have solved in your career, or that you’ve seen your students go on to solve after being in your class?
MS: I am a technologist so some of the most challenging have been in the technical domain. Rather than specific challenge, I believe that building software, sites and systems gives you small to large challenges each day you can pursue and solve. That is of the greatest parts of building software.
PB: If you could change anything about the structure of higher education, what would it be?
MS: I would like make it way more interactive and get feedback throughout the entire lecture.
PB: Why are you interested in educational affordability, and textbook affordability?
MS: Great minds can be found anywhere and from any social and economic status. I want more opportunity for more students.
PB: What do you believe the future of education will hold within the next 10 years? 20?
MS: I believe it will be super interactive at a giant scale so there will thousands of students in a course, but it be customized to them. There will be multiple learning paths to accommodate different kinds of learners, speeds and styles.
PB: What excites you about Packback and the Packback Professor Advisory Board?
MS: I love Packback’s interest and efforts to provide students with a more affordable college experience. I think books, including textbooks, are so stuck in the last century there are some amazing opportunities change how “book learning” is done.
PB: What are 3 tips that you would give students to help them get more out of their four years of college, while spending less?
MS: 1. Review the syllabus once a week – it’s the course GPS
2. Make sure you and your academic counselor have mapped out a course-by-course plan to graduation – having to take courses when you thought you were done is painful and expensive
3. Use Packback!
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How to connect with Martin and Packback:
Martin hosts office hours at 1871 and is an amazing tech mentor. If you’re interested getting more details on Martin check out this blog at http://aka.ms/martin.
Get Martin’s book, “Jump Start Guide for Microsoft Visual Basic” on Amazon here.
Want to learn about Packback Answers? Check out Packback Answers
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