Math professor. Former principal. Mathematics teacher. Author. Teacher educator.

Patrick Sullivan helps schools move beyond procedures and build mathematics classrooms centered on sense-making, reasoning, and understanding.

Dr. Patrick Sullivan has spent more than 30 years helping students and teachers experience mathematics as something that can be understood, not simply memorized. He is a Professor of Mathematics at Missouri State University, a teacher educator, and the author of See It, Say It, Symbolize It: Teaching the Big Ideas in Elementary Mathematics.

Professional Experience
At Missouri State, Patrick teaches mathematics content and methods courses for preservice teachers as well as graduate courses focused on effective mathematics instruction. His work centers on helping educators build students’ number sense, reasoning, confidence, and deep conceptual understanding.

Before joining Missouri State, Patrick served as a mathematics teacher, department chair, and school principal. As principal of Grace Prep High School in State College, Pennsylvania, he helped lead the school to recognition among the top 1% of private schools in the state. Earlier in his career, he chaired mathematics departments at DeSoto High School and Mill Valley High School in Kansas.

Patrick’s work has consistently focused on improving mathematics learning for students who may have come to see mathematics as a collection of disconnected rules—or as something they simply are not good at. At Missouri State, he helped lead a redesign of a developmental mathematics course while also strengthening the pedagogical preparation of graduate teaching assistants, contributing to meaningful increases in student success.

Leadership & Recognition
He is a past-president of the Missouri Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, and was named the Missouri Teacher Educator of the Year. He has presented throughout the United States on practical approaches to mathematics teaching, mathematical reasoning, fractions, probability and statistics, technology, and professional learning.

Professional Learning Philosophy
Patrick’s professional learning is grounded in the same sense-making philosophy that shapes See It, Say It, Symbolize It—helping teachers and students connect representations, mathematical language, reasoning, and symbols so that procedures emerge from understanding rather than replace it.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in education and master’s degree in teaching and leadership from the University of Kansas and his doctorate in curriculum and instruction from The Pennsylvania State University.

“Every student is capable of mathematical brilliance when they are given opportunities to make sense of mathematics, communicate their thinking, and connect ideas in meaningful ways.”