Blog

How I Create Lecture Videos

There is no one right way to create lecture material for an online course. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. I’m going to describe what I do, not because I think it’s “best” but just for interest. The adage "if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter" comes to mind, in that it does take more time to make a succinct video, but I think it is worth it.

One thing that was extremely important to me was preserving my own personal style in the videos. In class I always use the chalkboard (never slides) because there is a huge benefit to seeing problems worked...

Academic Integrity in Online Education

I've given several presentations this term (and watched several dozen more!) about academic integrity in online teaching. This post is some of the thoughts which became my recent presentation on the subject at the Actuarial Research Conference. You can find the video of the talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IL2a7L1WEw and slides attached to this post.

First of all, cheating is not necessarily higher in online courses just because they are online. Cheating has many causes, including students being...

Authentic and Effective Assessment for Online Education

I was invited by READI to give a presentation on teaching in an online environment. I focused on creating connections, reducing cheating, and designing effective assessments. Below are some follow-up resources I said I would provide for the attendees, but anyone is welcome to use them!

A video of the talk is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjmRoy5k6hs&feature=youtu.be&t=396 and the slides from the presentation are in the attached pdf.

...

Teaching Teachers in Indonesia with READI - Part 2

It has been several months since the READI course on Interactive Teaching in Actuarial Science, and it feels a little bit like a dream, it was such a whirlwind experience. In this post I’ll try to collect some of my thoughts about how it went and what I learned.

On the first morning, I met my students for the first time at breakfast, and then we headed to the seminar room. The room had a projector, a small whiteboard, and a pair of flip charts, which worked well for what I had planned. I organized the students into groups of 5-8 people each to facilitate the discussion phases...

Teaching Teachers in Indonesia with READI - Part 1

The opportunity came up for me to teach a workshop on Interactive Teaching in Actuarial Science to university Lecturers in Indonesia through the READI project. (READI stands for Risk management, Economic sustainability, and Actuarial science Development in Indonesia and is a joint venture with the Indonesian and Canadian governments to build needed actuarial expertise and capacity.)

I was extremely excited: here...

Get to Know your Students: The Benefits of Participating in Student Clubs

As a Faculty member, it’s easy to forget what it’s like to be a student. I’m not talking about late night assignments, last minute study sessions, and cramped living spaces; I’m talking about forming communities of common interest, developing lifelong friendships, and exploring your passions.

In my 12 years as a faculty member, I have been involved in FASS (the Faculty, Alumni, Staff, and Students theatre company...

What I Learned About Pedagogy from Magic School

In August 2018 I had the immense pleasure of attending my first live action role-playing game at Bothwell School of Witchcraft. Everyone was given a character to play, and the action unfolded over 3 days based on the group’s collective improvisation skills as well as the groundwork laid by the organizers. I thought I was merely vacationing while indulging in my fascination with a certain fictional British magical boarding school, but it turns out even in a real castle in East Sussex there is pedagogical inspiration to be found.

Getting Students to "Think Like Actuaries"

I attended the 2017 Actuarial Research Conference (ARC) and was fascinated by a talk that argued insurance companies should consider firearm ownership as a rating factor. Firearm presence has a stronger impact on claims than many other factors that are used. The reason for its absence is not efficacy but politics: there is opposition from groups that have a vested interest in more firearms being sold. I was intrigued and wanted to weave this kind of topic into my teaching.

Around the same time, I was finishing up the Fundamentals of Actuarial Practice modules, which examine...

See my original teaching blog here:

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~dkchisho/teachingblog.html

I am in the process of moving posts over to this platform.

Assessment Design for Learning

I was invited to give a talk for Dan Wolczuk's seminar for UW instructors, and chose to talk about Assessment Design for Learning. You can view the presentation here and access the slides below. In it, I touch on several of the ways I design assessments in my courses to encourage student learning, including:

Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning
Incorporating high level questions into assessments
Interactive tutorials...

Diana Skrzydlo

Math Faculty Teaching Fellow and Associate Professor, Teaching Stream