My name is Marshall Cowie, and I am a third-year student studying Mathematical Physics here at the University of Waterloo. For the past four months I have had the opportunity to work as an Educational Research Assistant with Diana. I worked on the Enhancing Assessment Practices project, focusing on understanding math assessment practices through collecting data from math course syllabi, as well as researching concerns surrounding generative artificial intelligence (genAI).
Guest post by Sachin Kotecha, Math Sessional Instructor (sachin.kotecha@uwaterloo.ca)
This past February, I (virtually) attended the 25th SIGMAA on RUME conference. Across three days, I attended 15 talks on mathematics education research, with a particular focus on attending talks on inclusivity in mathematics (and on assessment techniques - but that’s not the topic of this blog post!)
One talk in particular resonated with me - it connected both with my experience in my days as a math (and...
This list is taken from the paper of the same name by Nikolas Zelem, Chelsea Uggenti, and Diana Skrzydlo, published in the IASE conference proceedings.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) promotes inclusion of a diverse set of student learning needs and is beneficial for improving student learning outcomes regardless of physical or neurological ability. Yet instructors may ask themselves, “Where do I start?” in terms of implementing UDL strategies in their courses. A list of nine basic changes made by instructors to improve the accessibility...
Guest post by Anton Mosunov, Math Undergraduate Group (amosunov@uwaterloo.ca)
Back in March I attended the Fields MathEd forum. The focus of this meeting was on research in math education and training of future math educators. A video of the session can be found here: http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/activities/22-23/meforum-Mar I will share with you three interesting problems that were used by researchers in their studies. What...
Guest post by Anton Mosunov, Math Undergraduate Group (amosunov@uwaterloo.ca)
Recently I went to the conference on Education and Cognition that was held at McMaster University. I got a chance to attend a workshop on Digital Accessibility and...
Guest blog post by Nikolas Zelem, nzelem@uwaterloo.ca
My name is Nikolas Zelem, I’m a third-year student in the Honours Physics program here at the University of Waterloo. I’ve spent the last four months working with Diana as an Educational Research Assistant. Most of my time was spent working on tasks for the Enhancing Assessment Practices (EAP) project. I reviewed Faculty of Math course syllabi and co-conducted a survey of Faculty of Math students regarding assessments. Both tasks were in service of a larger goal, creating a webpage for the EAP project....
Guest post by Sean Speziale, Math Undergrad Group (sspeziale@uwaterloo.ca)
As I look upon the sleepy faces of my students, I try to remind myself that it’s 4:15 in the afternoon and week 12 of the term, to reassure myself that it’s not me or calculus that’s boring. Nevertheless I cannot help to think of what might motivate these students to embrace this opportunity for learning. It brought me back to July 2022 and the McMaster Conference on Education and Cognition (EdCog). There I attended a workshop led by Veronica Yan entitled Motivating...
Guest post by Chelsea Uggenti, Statistics & Actuarial Science (cuggenti@uwaterloo.ca)
Last weekend I attended the CMS Winter Meeting in Toronto. It was my first time attending a CMS meeting and my first in-person conference since the pandemic; both of which did not disappoint! The energy and inspiration that was felt by all attendees – me included – was palpable each day.
I attended the conference specifically for the education sessions. These sessions, and the incredible educators from all over the...
Guest post by Carmen Bruni, Computer Science (cbruni@uwaterloo.ca)
CMS Toronto has come and gone. With every passing conference, I still find myself feeling reinvigorated and inspired to make our university a better place.
I thought I'd take this opportunity to briefly summarize some of the wonderful ideas that were presented at CMS in the session I co-organized with Amenda Chow (York) and Fok-Shuen Leung (UBC) in hopes that you as...
