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[TDF Recap] Finding Joy, Justice, and Identity in Mathematics

Guest post by Comfort Mintah, Assistant Professor Teaching Stream, CEMC (c2mintah@uwaterloo.ca)

What does math look like when it steps outside the textbook?

That was the question I found myself asking—again and again—at this year’s Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) Summer Meeting in Quebec City. The conference brought together educators, outreach organizers, researchers, and performers, all working at the intersection of mathematics and equity, creativity, and care. It was, in a word, energizing. Below are some...

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Announcing: The ActuEras Tour!

I have my first ever Spring non-teaching term in May - August 2025, so I'm planning a world tour to talk about actuarial & statistical education! I'll be updating my tour dates here: https://uwaterloo.ca/scholar/dkchisho/actueras-tour and hopefully making a blog post about what I presented as well as what I learned at each location/event. Hope you can join me at one of the talks and/or follow along online!
P.S. Credit goes to my sister for coming up with the ActuEras Tour name :) Read more about Announcing: The ActuEras Tour!

Educational Research Summary

Guest post by Nicola Ablett, nablett@uwaterloo.ca

My name is Nicola Ablett, and I am a fourth year Data Science student here at the University of Waterloo. I have had the pleasure of being the Educational Research Assistant for Diana this term. Throughout the last couple of months I have been working on the Enhancing Assessment Practices project investigating data from core math courses, reading results from student surveys, and learning more about general policies that are on course syllabi. The project is wrapping up this year, and by giving a...

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[TDF Recap] From Lecture to Keynote: Talk on Cognitive Load Theory sparked my next presentation

Guest post by Ilham Akhundov, Associate Professor Teaching Stream (ilham.akhundov@uwaterloo.ca)

Recently, I attended the Math Teaching Colloquium at University of Waterloo. The speaker Dan Wolczuk delivered a compelling presentation on how cognitive load theory can revolutionize teaching and learning math. The talk highlighted how managing cognitive load effectively can lead to better student engagement and deeper learning. Inspired by this insightful presentation, I decided to dive deeper into the subject.

I quickly realized that there is a significant...

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To Flip or Not To Flip?

The Flipped Classroom is an approach to teaching in a blended format where students learn material through asynchronous videos or readings, and then class time is spent on actively applying the material. There are lots of great tips for designing flipped courses but I wanted to create a quick rubric to decide if flipping is right for your course. The following is based on the APGAR score (for newborn babies) where each of 5 criteria is given a simple score of 0, 1, or 2, giving a final score out of 10. Try it for your own course!

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Educational Research Summary

Guest post by Marshall Cowie, gcowie@uwaterloo.ca

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).

Continuing the work of...

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[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...

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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...

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[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...

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