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).
Introduction: The Current State of LLMs and the Promise of Autonomy
Recently, an announcement was made concerning the creation of the first autonomous software developer—amid multiple other similar announcements. As someone deeply involved in working with large language models (LLMs), I can assert two key points: First, such developments are inevitable at some point in the future. Second, the present does not yet embody this future, and I harbor significant skepticism regarding the uniqueness of their creation compared to existing...
I joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science as a Lecturer at the University of Waterloo in September 2022. It’s now a year later and reflecting on my first full-time year of teaching has brought up many memories of blissful excitement, daunting confusion (e.g., first hearing about Learn, Crowdmark, Odyssey, Workday, Quest, OAT, etc. all in the same week!), steadfast determination, and lessons learned.
This reflection began when I spoke at FYMSiC’s online conference in May...
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....
