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...
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
Back in early 2015, the SAS (Stats and Act Sci) department was having a discussion about CS students in the two required STAT courses (230: Probability and 231: Statistics). While CS students are as strong as other Math students in most courses, they were systematically underperforming in STATs.
The idea that got the most traction was to pilot a special section of STAT 230, which would focus on the CS applications of probability. The hope was that by including more relevant examples, and pointing out the many important tie-ins to later CS courses, the students would be more...
This post is based on a presentation I made at the 52nd Actuarial Research Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in July 2017. The slides for the presentation are attached.
I was inspired to give this talk by a few conversations I had with other actuarial educators at last year's conference. I mentioned my usual approach to testing both basic and high level thinking skills, along with communication, in the same question on my exams. More than one person was extremely surprised by my approach and exclaimed "I wish I could write...
As part of my LITE grant (see posts below) I presented the outcomes of my work with STAT 334 at UW's Opportunities and New Directions conference in April 2016. I also gave a similar (and a bit more detailed) presentation to my own department of Statistics and Actuarial Science in June 2016. Finally, I talked about how to extend these ideas to Actuarial Science courses at the ...
I have used Oral Exams in several courses in the past (STAT 430/830: Experimental Design, ACTSC 455/855: Advanced Life Insurance Practice, and ACTSC 613: Probability and Statistics for Actuaries) based on research I had done while completing my Certificate in University Teaching. So I was eager to use them in STAT 334 as well. I always use them in addition to, rather than instead of, a traditional written final exam.
A lot of applied statistical techniques are best learned by doing, such as experimental design, predictive modelling, simulation, etc. Probability models (what is covered in STAT 334) are often fairly theoretical, but STAT 334 is a course for business and accounting students, who are more interested in the applications. They are also familiar with the idea of case studies from the business courses they take.
Because of that, I decided to have a Case Study Competition in STAT 334. The choice of topic was completely up to the...
Last year I applied for and received a LITE Seed Grant to add some new techniques to STAT 334. The three main things I added were interactive tutorials, a case study competition, and oral exams. I'll talk about each one in a different post.
Part 1: Interactive Tutorial Activities
Different instructors use tutorials in different ways, but for me the most effective way is to give the students...
I used Lego in a grad level ActSci course and it was great!
I'm teaching ACTSC 635: Actuarial Communications, a small class, and we did an interactive kinesthetic learning activity (similar to Lego Serious Play).
Phase 1: Written communication only (in partners)
Each student received a different Lego structure
They had 15 minutes to write instructions for building it
They built their partner's structure from the instructions
Not surprisingly, this was very difficult, and only 3 out of 18 got it.
