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 world that I had the opportunity to interact and talk with, rejuvenated my passion for teaching (which was well timed since it occurred towards the end of the fall term).
My reflections on the conference sessions led me to three key takeaway points to share with all of you. The first came after Dan Wolczuk’s talk entitled Fact, Fiction, or Fad. Dan discussed the many different types of teaching methods that have risen in popularity over his decades-long career as an instructor, including active learning, inquiry-based learning, flipped classrooms, and mastery-grading.
I greatly enjoyed Dan’s insightful comments about whether new pedagogical methods should be adopted or critiqued. As a new instructor and someone who lives for teaching, I must admit to wanting to try every type of new teaching method I hear about… without necessarily thinking twice about it! The main conclusion in Dan’s talk was that each instructor needs to figure out what works for them (i.e., their course; their students; their personality). More reflections will be necessary to figure that one out.
The second talk that left an impression on me was James Charbonneau’s Experiences in Instructor Development Through Paired Teaching. James highlighted that teaching observations really are the most important thing we can do to both improve and evaluate teaching. How often do we observe one another teach? How often do we have others observe us? If we want to dive deeper to figure out what teaching techniques/styles work best for us, as Dan mentioned, then we need to observe anyone and everyone that we can.
Teaching observations may seem like an easy idea for new instructors. The University of Waterloo’s CTE even offers Teaching Squares to allow instructors to observe one another and reflect upon those observations. I participated in this program this past term and it was helpful, but I have to ask myself why I haven’t simply “sat-in” on classes offered by my colleagues. Honestly, I don’t have a great answer. Lack of time? Didn’t occur to me? None of these are true. I’m excited to challenge myself next term to observe more classes – perhaps you might challenge yourself to it too.
Lastly, I resonated with two separate talks on inclusive practices in large classes; one by Diana Skrzydlo called Universal Design for Learning in Stats and one by Jaimal Thind. The notion of not knowing where to start with UDL came up in conversation. One recommendation was to start with the low-hanging fruit (i.e., what we can do right now that is relatively easy to do to help all students in our classes). For instance, by setting flexible assessments like the best 3 out of 4 quizzes or by offering 24-48 hour “no-questions-asked” extensions on assignments. Jaimal’s suggestion of changing the common Think-Pair-Share activity to Think-Pair-NoShare was an interesting idea to help students who feel anxious or uncomfortable with answering questions in large classes.
Overall, what did I walk away with? I learned to figure out what works for me when teaching, to observe other people teaching (this can help with the previous point), and to start small when incorporating inclusive practices into my teaching.
These three ideas seem great to me – small and manageable, yet effective and important. My goals for the next year are rooted with these foundations. I would love to hear what your goals are!