Blog

Teaching: one year down, more to go!

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...

Read more about Teaching: one year down, more to go!

[TDF Recap] Mathematical Microagressions

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...

Read more about [TDF Recap] Mathematical Microagressions

First Steps Toward Implementing Universal Design for Learning to Support Equitable Assessments

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...

Read more about First Steps Toward Implementing Universal Design for Learning to Support Equitable Assessments

[TDF Recap] Three Problems That Illustrate Research and Discovery in Mathematics

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...

Read more about [TDF Recap] Three Problems That Illustrate Research and Discovery in Mathematics

Educational Research for Enhancing Assessment Practices

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....

Read more about Educational Research for Enhancing Assessment Practices

[TDF Recap] Motivating Students

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...

Read more about [TDF Recap] Motivating Students