July Events 2007

Paul Kates, Mathematics Faculty CTE Liaison

CTE Events

TRACE and LT3 have joined together to become CTE, the Centre for Teaching Excellence. Also included in the new centre is the LRI group. You can learn all about us by visiting the CTE site above and the FAQ located there. Liaisons will continue to assist with teaching resources and technologies, course development, information about funds for teaching, plus bring news of local teaching events and ideas and practices about teaching and learning from professors, instructors and researchers in our faculties and around the world.

Stories about CTE:

CTE Workshops

See the above link for details and registration. Workshops are popular and seating is limited at times.

A Matter of Style: Learning From Ontario's Best Lecturers

Course Design

Teaching Dossiers Workshop

Understanding the Learner

CUT Research Project Presentations

Talks and Conferences

Teaching: Readings, Audio and Video

An Evening With a Nobel Laureate

In this March 9, 2007 podcast, Nobel Laureate and UBC physics Prof. Carl Wieman talks about his passion for science education and why he decided to come to Canada to join UBC in January, 2007. This Celebrate Research Week event was hosted at UBC's Robson Square campus by Prof. Sid Katz, Executive Director, Community Relations.

Some bookmarks for the 95 minute interview:

The Presidents' Colloquium on Teaching and Learning presented What Makes Great Teachers Great?. by Dr. Ken Bain on April 30, 2007. His research of sixty-three highly successful teachers from a wide variety of fields and higher education institutions over fifteen-years produced an award-winning book: "What the Best College Teachers Do" (Harvard University Press, 2004).

The book is available at the UW Texbook store for $25. If you would like to borrow a copy please send me email.

Dr. Bain is Vice Provost for Instruction and Director of the Teaching and Learning Resource Center at Montclair State University in New Jersey. He has received numerous awards for his research in teaching and learning as well as his scholarship on the history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Dr. Bain has also received four major teaching awards.

Some information and reviews about Dr. Bain's book What the Best College Teachers Do available on the net:

Video of the 2006 and 2005 Presidents' Colloquiums on Teaching and Learning are available online:

And, in the spirit of Dr. Bain's lecture What Makes Great Teachers Great? a reprise of Confessions of an (Innovative) Educator the keynote presentation at the McGraw-Hill Conference on Teaching and Learning, December 2004, by Dr. Howard Armitage, University of Waterloo. Both video and audio downloads are available. Dr. Armitage was awarded a 3M Teaching Fellowship in 2004.

John Mighton, mathematician, author, award-winning playwright and founder of the JUMP Math numeracy program, has written a new math education book The End of Ignorance. The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Toronto Life have recently written about Dr. Mighton's work and new book. Visit this link to read more.

Course Development Funds

Student Awards & Financial Aid Office

SAFA has funds to hire students for on-campus jobs (e.g. assisting with course development). There are two programs:

MEF - funds available every term total $45K-$60K

The Mathematics Endowment Fund (MEF) finances projects that benefit undergraduate math students. Proposals, accepted from students, faculty, staff and student clubs, are to be of an educational nature, providing teaching resources, equipment and services that improve student learning. Total available funds each term are from $45-60K. The proposal deadline for the current term was Friday, June 22, 2007. but, proposals can be submitted anytime. Application forms are posted at the MEF site above. Details will be posted when available. Funds are made available soon after the proposal deadline (usually the middle of a term) to assist with preparation of the following term.

Funded projects include:

CTE - $1K ID fund

Instructional Development (ID) Grants of up to $1,000 are administered twice a year (Spring and Fall) through the TRACE Office. ID Grants are designed to help instructors and staff improve teaching effectiveness. for both on-campus and distance education courses. Information and the application form can be obtained from the above link. Proposal deadlines are: Friday, May 25, 2007 and Wednesday, November 7, 2007.

Funded examples include:

CTE - $20K LIF/PIF fund

Each May, grants are available to faculty, departments and schools for the enhancement of current learning outcomes in UW undergraduate courses through changes in instructional methods, learning resources, and curricula.

Grants are worth up to $20,000 under both the Learning Initiatives Fund and the Program Initiatives Fund (which is tied to formal undergraduate academic program reviews). The funds can be used over a two year period.

Proposal guidelines, details about the funds, contacts, past projects and type of projects funded can be found from the link above.

For assistance with proposal and project development see your faculty CTE Liaison (Paul Kates) or the Teaching Based Research Group (Gail Spencer, x38175, gspencer@admmail.uwaterloo.ca, or Vivian Schoner, 32940, vschoner@admmail.uwaterloo.ca).

UW-ACE help

Using UW-ACE

Individuals, department and faculty groups can contact me to arrange times for sessions on their topics of interest, e.g. gradebook and Quest mark handling, communication via email, forums and calendar, and writing LaTeX-quality math in UW-ACE pages and quizzes using javascript and HTML (without using postscript or PDF documents).

See the Welcome to UW-ACE page for information about

UW-ACE Fall 2007 Course Requests

Request a UW-ACE course for the fall 2007 term by sending a note to Paul Kates or to uwacehelp@ist.uwaterloo.ca. Please give the course abbreviation (e.g. MATH 199), your preference for a new, blank course or one copied from a previous term, and if known, the names of additional instructors and TAs.

Or, request a UW-ACE course online through UW-ACE:

  1. Log into UW-ACE using your UWdir/Quest/UW-ACE credentials.
  2. Select the UW Request a Course hyperlink found under the UW Home Tools banner on your UW-ACE Home page to see your courses.
  3. Select the course or courses from the drop-down list and submit your request.
  4. If a course is missing from your drop-down list, please use the contacts mentioned above.

Library eReserves and UW-ACE courses

E-journal articles subscribed to by the library can quickly be made available to a class through eReserves, the library's online course resource system. In these cases no further copyright permissions are needed. See these library sites for more information:

Linking from UW-ACE to your eReserve material is easy:

  1. fill out the online request form for the library's copy of journal articles or books
  2. bring the library copies of your own articles, books, lecture notes, assignment solutions, etc
  3. wait 1-3 days for access to material that doesn't need copyright permission (other material can take much longer to obtain copyright permission - contact the library for advice)
  4. lookup your eReserve UW-ACE page
  5. cut the three line HTML eReserve link from the library page and paste it into any HTML text in UW-ACE (in folder instructions, HTML page, Calendar entry, syllabus, ...) or other web site
  6. note: javascript needs to be turned on in a browser to use the eReserve link to access the library material

Teaching with Maple, MapleTA

Live web seminars for the new Maple 11 and MapleTA 3 (including connections to MATLAB and Simulink and teaching with Maple and MapleTA) are running on the following dates this term:

Also available is a video demonstration of Maple 11 with cameos by U of Guelph Mathematics Professor Jack Weiner and Dr. Robert J. Lopez, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA and author of several books including Advanced Engineering Mathematics (Addison-Wesley 2001).

One student writes in the recent MaplePrimes online newsletter how useful Maple is in Number Theory and Topology courses:

I've got to say, I am super-excited by the announcement of Maple 11. Is there anything I need to do now in order to purchase a student copy in March, or will I be able to simply buy the upgrade for Maple 10 when it becomes available?

I haven't even gotten to use all the features of Maple 10 yet...although this semester I'll be giving the numtheory package a workout. I'm a student at Arizona State University, and there are lots of professors who make extensive use of Maple in their advanced courses. Dr. Matthias Kawski (my instructor for general topology this semester) has an incredibly extensive library of Maple worksheets that I think may be hyperlinked on this site, and Dr. John Jones (a professor of algebra, number theory, and their applications) has a set of Maple labs that go with a book which he co-authored, Discovering Number Theory.

I'm particularly interested in the new theoretical physics and differential geometry packages, as I hope to do research in the latter field and I'm immensely enthusiastic about the former (primarily general relativity).

...

Read about teaching mathematics using the computer algebra system Maple and the computer algebra assignment and quiz system MapleTA.

In addition to MapleTA, June Lowe (x33888) in Engineering uses a quiz system based on Adobe's AuthorWare software to conduct CDTs - Computer Delivered Tutorials. Typically, students work in pairs on short problems based on the concepts and techniques discussed in class.

This quiz system is similar to the UW-ACE quiz system in question types, and doesn't incorporate a computer algebra engine like MapleTA, but unique among the three quiz systems is its flow-chart style construction method and its ability to include control logic (like a program) within a quiz. A demonstration can be arranged by calling June at x33888.

Term Dates

  - Spring 2007 -
   May 1(T)       Lectures Begin
   May 7(M)       Distance Education Open Class Enrollment Ends 
   May 14(M)      On-Campus Open Class Enrollment Ends 
   May 21(M)      Victoria Day holiday (no clases)
   May 21(M)      Drop, No Penalty Period Ends 
   May 22(T)      Deadline to Drop or Withdraw from Courses with 100% Tuition Refund
   May 22(T)      Drop, Penalty 1 Period Begins, official Winter term grades available from Quest 
   May 31(R)      Final Date for Fee Arrangements 
   June 18(M)     Deadline for 50% Tuition Refund 
   June 25(M)     Drop, Penalty 1 Period Ends 
   June 26(T)     Drop, Penalty 2 Period Begins 
   July 2(M)      Canada Day holiday (no classes)
   July 27(F)     Lectures End 
   Aug 1(W)       Drop, Penalty 2 Period Ends; Last Day to Drop a Class without petition
   Aug 2(R)       On-Campus Examinations Begin 
                  (schedule: www.registrar.uwaterloo.ca/exams/finalexams.html)
   Aug 6(M)       Civic Holiday (no classes)
   Aug 15(W)      On-Campus Examinations End 
   Aug 10-11(F-S) Distance Education Examination Days 
   Aug 31(F)      Grades Due
   Aug 16(R)      Unofficial Grades Begin to Appear in Quest 
   Sep 14(F)      Standings Available in Quest 
  
  - Fall 2007 -
   Sep 3(M)       Labour Day
   Sep 10(M)      Lectures Begin
   Sep 14(F)      Distance Education Open Class Enrolment Ends
   Sep 21(F)      On-Campus Open Class Enrolment Ends
   Sept 28(F)     Deadline to Drop or Withdraw from Courses with 100% Tuition Refund
   Sept 28(F)     Drop, No Penalty Period Ends
   Sept 28(F)     Final Date for Fee Arrangements
   Sept 29(S)     Drop, Penalty 1 Period Begins
   Oct 8(M)       Thanksgiving Day
   Oct 26(F)      Deadline for 50% Tuition Refund
   Nov 2(F)       Drop, Penalty 1 Period Ends
   Nov 3(S)       Drop, Penalty 2 Period Begins
   Dec 3(M)       Lectures End
   Dec 5(W)       Drop, Penalty 2 Period Ends; 
                  Last Day to Drop a Class Without a Petition
   Dec 6(R)       On-Campus Examinations Begin
   Dec 7, 8(F, S) Distance Education Examination Days
   Dec 13-21(R-F) Grades Due 
   + Jan 3(R) 
   Dec 20(R)      On-Campus Examinations End
   Dec 21(F)      Unofficial Grades Begin to Appear in Quest
   Dec 24-31(M-M) Christmas Holidays
   Jan 28 2008(M) Standings Available in Quest

Past Events

June, 2007 March, 2006
May, 2007 February, 2006
April, 2007 January, 2006
February, 2007 December, 2005
January, 2007 November, 2005
December, 2006 October, 2005
November, 2006 September, 2005
October, 2006 August, 2005
September, 2006 July, 2005
August, 2006 June, 2005
July, 2006 May, 2005
May, 2006 April, 2005
April, 2006

Liaison Information

Paul Kates,
Mathematics Faculty CTE Liaison,
pkates@uwaterloo.ca, x37047

This page is located at www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~pkates/LT3/events.html.

More information about the services of the Centre for Teaching Excellence - CTE is available at lt3.uwaterloo.ca/.

More information about learning and teaching Mathematics, Computer Science, plus a description of the services I provide as Mathematics Faculty CTE Liaison is available here.