Ken Rand

Ken Rand is an award-winning college math professor who retired in 2015 after forty-seven years of teaching. Soon after retirement, Ken became a presenter and guest speaker at numerous statewide and national educational conferences. The encouraging feedback he received from those who have attended those presentations is one of the reasons that he decided to write his book.

Ken’s teaching experiences include a variety of educational levels, beginning with junior high school, high school, and then two and four-year colleges. For a brief period, he was also the director of research and development for Creative Publications, a mathematics educational publisher.

While working for Creative Publications, Ken wrote and edited a variety of activity books and created some classroom games. He has also written an algebra textbook (published by West Publishers) called Solving the Mystery. Some of the strategy games that he created have been sold in retail stores such as Macy’s and J.C. Penney, and stores throughout Canada and Europe. More recently, he has self-published his own book of word games titled Afterwords.

Ken’s crowning achievement at Hartnell College just may be his creation and development of the Math Academy, an extremely successful summer and winter intersession program designed to prepare students for their next math course. This unique and successful program has become a model for similar programs throughout the country. 

Known for his classroom story-telling technique, Ken has found a way to bring those classic classroom experiences to life in his book One Student at a Time. After reading Ken’s book, you will begin to realize that Ken has dedicated his professional life to making a difference in the lives of his students. Not only has Ken inspired his students, but perhaps Ken’s greatest impact is on the many teachers who have been fortunate enough to attend his interactive workshops. Those who have participated left with comments such as, “I will never teach the same way again,” and “When are you available to perform a workshop at my school?”

In 1967, when Ken first became a teacher, he was a pioneer in introducing innovative and interactive classroom activities that helped him to connect and engage with his students. The words “Master Teacher” are rarely used to described today’s great teachers, but this is exactly what some of his supervisors have written about him in their classroom evaluations.