February 2016 News
from CTE Math Faculty Liaison
Topics
CTE Learning/Teaching Events in Winter 2016
- CTE740: Waterloo High Impact Practices Speed Dating Event
Monday, February 8, 2016, Noon-1:30 pm
- CTE755: Open Educational Practices
Monday, February 8, 2016, 1-2:30 pm with guest
Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani
from Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
- CTE601: Instructional Skills Workshop
Tuesday, February 16-19, 2016.
This is a limited 24-hours workshop.
- CTE732: Course Design for Blended Learning
Monday, February 29, 2016, 9:30-2:45 PM.
- CTE908: Documenting Your Teaching for Tenure and Promotion,
Tuesday, March 29, 2016, 11:45-1:15 PM.
- UWaterloo's Eighth Annual Teaching and Learning Conference,
Thursday, April 28, 2016.
Theme: Learning from Challenge and Failure.
The keynote presentation is by Dr. Michael Starbird.
Dr. Starbird
is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin and has received more that fifteen teaching awards
including the Mathematical Association of America's 2007 national
teaching award.
For books and video lectures by Dr. Starbird see the Reading Week section below.
Also featured at the conference are two inspiring UWaterloo faculty members
in the Igniting Our Practice session: Greta Kroeker (History) and
Troy Vasiga (Computer Science).
Registration is now open.
Suggestions for Reading Week Feb 15-19
Monday February 15 is Family Day, a holiday, and the start
of Reading Week at UW. Classes resume on Monday February 22.
Below are some reading/viewing suggestions for you and your students.
1. Dr. Michael Starbird,
keynote speaker at the Teaching and Learning Conference
listed above, is the co-author of several books. Two are available
at our Davis library at UW:
- The heart of mathematics : an invitation to effective thinking (2000)
- Distilling ideas : an introduction to mathematical thinking (2013)
Dr. Starbird's home page
lists several other books of his plus notes (pdf files) for some
books-in-progress, including "Introduction to Abstract Mathematics
through Inquiry".
He is also the author of the UTAustinX/edX MOOC course
Effective Mathematical Thinking Through Mathematics.
2. Help your students cope with stress and workload by suggesting ideas
from the book
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel.
Roediger and McDaniel are Psychology profs at Washington University in
St. Louis.
- 6 tips for students:
- Opt for active practice over review. If you are learning a skill,
a foreign language or any other topic, practice retrieving it from memory
rather than rereading your text or reviewing instructional material.
Recalling what you have learned makes the learning stronger and more
easily recalled again later.
- Space your practice. Space out your practice sessions, letting time
elapse between them. Massed practice (like cramming) leads to fast
learning but also to rapid forgetting compared to spaced practice.
Spacing helps embed learning in long-term memory.
- Get plenty of sleep. Students think all-nighters are a good way to study,
but sleep helps memories consolidate and may make retrieval of learned
information better (relative to being sleep deprived).
- Switch between the study of different topics. If you have final exams
coming up in a week on history, chemistry and psychology, it is better to
study these topics on each day rather than only studying one subject.
- Test yourself. Make up practice tests and take them repeatedly as you
study. This step permits you to practice retrieving information from
memory, making the pathways to the learning stronger so you can recall it
easily later when you need it - and it also permits you to assess what
you know and what you do not know.
- Take notes by hand and not by computer. When typing, students tend to
record information as though they were taking dictation. When they
handwrite the notes they write more slowly, so they have to think harder
about the material to distill it.
- Prof Roediger presents the ideas in his book in a 1 hour video, posted Nov 21, 2014.
- a handout
for students summarizing the ideas from the book
- a handout
for instructors
Educational Technologies Workshop Series 2016
Monday Feb 29 to Friday March 4, 2016.
Event details here.
Topics:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
9:30am Course Design for Using Technology to Introduction to the Making Screencasts Enhancing Learning
Blended Learning Facilitate Collaboration Flipped withCamtasia through Gamification
Classroom
11:15am Course Design for Using Turnitin as an Introduction to the Making Screencasts Enhancing Learning
Blended Learning Educational Tool Flipped Classroom with Camtasia with Assessment Tools
1:15pm Course Design for Addressing Student Concept Mapping Teaching Online: ePortfolios:
Blended Learning Resistance to Innovative Tools Design Development Process and Product
Learning Strategies and Delivery
LEARN System Events and Topics in Winter 2016
Recent CTE Blog postings
CTE's Blog hosts an interesting
collection of posts about teaching:
- In consideration of the ICE model: an alternative learning framework
- viewing your course through Ideas, Connections and Extensions
- Assessing group work contributions
- A primer on case-based teaching
- Graduate Student Teaching on Campus (with list of UW Grad student teaching awards)
- let your grad student practice teaching
- Notes from the Music Studio
- students learn better by practice and feedback,
practicing the performance, knowing how to practice
- Keys for a TA to Succeed in the Classroom
Teaching Stories
Visit the
CTE Teaching Stories
page to find a collection of profiles of UW teachers talking about teaching.
Classroom Lecture Recording and Observation
Interested in seeing how you teach from a student's point-of-view?
Book a time for a video recording and observation of one of your
lectures. The lecture recording and feedback is shared only with
the lecturer. Email pkates@uwaterloo.ca for arrangements.
CTE LITE Grant Information
Learning Innovation and Teaching Enhancement (LITE) grants deadlines:
- Seed Grants: Two annually: February 1st and June 1st; up to $5000
- Full Grants: One annually: October 1st; up to $30,000
Visit the projects page for details on past and current grants.
LEARN, MapleTA, Clickers, ...
If you have any questions about
using the course management system LEARN, the MapleTA
assessment system, or want to try teaching with clickers in your classroom
then please get in touch with me.
Paul Kates
Mathematics Faculty CTE Liaison
pkates@uwaterloo.ca, x37047
Last modification date: Fri Feb 5 14:01:39 2016.
url: http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~pkates/CTE/events/feb-2016.html
