Teaching Resources

The Faculty of Mathematics has many resources designed to help instructors engage with their students and support their skills development.

Teamwork Skills Project 

This resource is a result of a Math Strategic Initiative to improve math students’ teamwork skills.

The modern workplace requires a lot of teamwork and collaboration, but students are not typically given instruction in how to do teamwork effectively. The teamwork skills project aims at

  • Deepening students’ understanding of learned knowledge through problem solving;
  • Enriching students’ experience and skills in team work;
  • Improving students' written and oral communication skills;
  • Providing instructors with resources to integrate group projects into their classes.

There are four modules in total. Each is independent of each other. Instructors could either use the modules in their entirety or pick what fits their curriculum. Each module contains

  • Slides that allow students to learn on their own;
  • Notes to instructors that provides tips and additional material if they would like to integrate the modules into their lectures;
  • Templates for some of the tools introduced in the slides.

Module #1: Team Assembly

Team contract, Gantt Chart, brainstorming, Wideband Delphi, task assignment.

Module #2: Team Communication

Communication plan, communication media, meeting management, tips about e-mail, presentation and report.

Module #3: Conflict Management

Sources of conflict, different types of conflicts, conflict resolution techniques and their pros and cons.

Module #4: Feedbacks and Evaluations

Different forms of feedbacks, components of feedbacks, tips about giving and receiving feedbacks.

This is an on-going project and we value your inputs. If you have any comments or suggestions to improve the project, please contact Michael Liu. Your valuable feedbacks are highly appreciated!

Learning How to Learn

Dan Wolczuk is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in the Math Undergraduate Group. His popular “Learning How to Learn” seminars have been adapted into short videos that can be shared easily with students.

In Dan’s words, “I believe the most important thing that students, at any level, can learn is how to learn. Once you know how to learn effectively and efficiently, then the sky is the limit.”


Math EdTech

The Digital Assets Group has created a wiki which provides a summary of frequently used educational technology tools for teaching and course development in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, and the available instructor supports for each tool. Although the focus is on teaching in Math, it will likely be useful for all instructors.

The wiki provides information on

  • Teaching Technologies
  • Utilities and Services (e.g., LaTeX to HTML, handwriting and pdf to LaTeX)
  • Accessibility (e.g., captioning, color contrast best practices)

CTE Liaison

Matthew Babela is the Centre for Teaching Excellence Liaison for the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. He supports both instructors and graduate students in developing their teaching strategies, learning activities, course design, assessment methods, and the effective integration of educational technologies.

The liaison teaching resource page contains various CTE teaching tips, CTE workshops and events, and other teaching-related resources (e.g., EdTech, student support services, math teaching seminar).

Have resources to contribute to this page? Please e-mail CTE Liaison Matthew Babela