Rick Logsdon--Adjunct Instructor, Mathematics
Biography:
Rick Logsdon grew up in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area and moved to Central Florida in 1974. He graduated from Lake Wales High School in 1978 and attended Polk Community College as an Early Admissions student in the 1977-78 school year. At Polk Community College, Rick majored in mathematics and completed the following math courses: Pre-Calculus, Calculus I, II and III, Differential Equations, Intro to Statistics and Linear Algebra/Matrix Theory. Rick graduated from Polk Community College in 1979 and transferred to the University of Central Florida. Rick majored in Computer Science and graduated in August, 1981. While at the University of Central Florida, Rick completed mathematics related course work in Numerical Calculus, Statistical Methods, Mathematical Statistics and Discrete Computational Structures.
Rick has worked in the Information Technology department at Polk State College since September, 1981. He has been involved with student records for the past 30 years and also has an extensive background in payroll and accounting systems. Currently, Rick is the Systems Analyst for Student Records and FACTS and also serves as the Microsoft Sharepoint expert at the College. He has led many system conversion projects including the migration from small system to large system UNISYS in 1987, the conversion to the Pensacola Student Records System in 1994 and wrote the data extraction programs for the conversion to the Higher Education Technology Group (HETGroup) Integrow system.
Rick has extensive teaching experience at the community college level. Beginning as an adjunct computer instructor in 1991, Rick taught Operating Systems I and II, Intro to Computers and Systems Analysis. He also taught Continuing Education courses in the DOS Operating system. Rick was an adjunct computer faculty member until 2003. Rick began teaching college prep mathematics in the fall of 2007. Having a love for math, Rick shares that love with students to help students achieve their goals in mathematics.
Rick likes to teach math using technology. Using MyMathLab or ALEKS for Developmental Math II and ALEKS for Developmental Math I, homework can be done on-line and students have the opportunity to get help with their homework problems by clicking on a link that provides a step-by-step working of the problem. In addition, there are multiple resources available to help the student succeed including video lectures by the author of the textbook, selected problems worked by the author and additional helps provided by the instructor.
Systems Analysis and math go hand in hand. Math teaches you to think logically and working math problems help you solve everyday problems. Although I do not use higher level math in an everyday setting, math has provided the skills necessary to do my job more effectively. Without the skills that math has given me, I don't believe that I would be where I am today.