Refereed publication in Mathematics Education
- Code, Warren J., David Kohler, Costanza Piccolo and Mark MacLean. “Teaching Methods Comparison in a Large Calculus Class”. Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education. Portland, Oregon, USA. Feb, 2012. 375 – 379.
Talks (not counting internal talks to the Department of Mathematics)
- “Beyond Walls: Teaching and Learning in the Open” at the UBC Open Access Week, also featuring Jon Beasley Murray and Stephen Hay; UBC, Vancouver, BC – October 2012
- “Creating a user driven approach to the development of open education content” with Will Engle (UBC) at the 9th International Open Education conference in Vancouver, BC – October 2012
- “The Math Exam Resources wiki” part of the UBC wiki All-Star session; UBC Vancouver, BC – May 2012
Research activities
Teaching methods
Warren Code (UBC CWSEI Math) has been interested in replicating the results of the Science paper by Deslauries & al. “Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class”. In Fall 2011, he contacted me to participate to an experiment. There was two large and comparable sections of first year calculus taught by two experienced faculty members whose teaching methods can be described as “lecture with questions”. The experiment that Warren designed consisted in substituting these instructors for a week with another one whose teaching methods involved more active learning methods. He asked me to be that substitute instructor. We designed the substitute lectures together, including worksheets, clicker questions and pre-reading online activities. At the end of the substitute week, a quiz was given to the students in each section for comparison and later one, comparisons were made on the midterm and final exam. From the analysis done so far, we have concluded a small but significant improvement in learning from our active learning teaching method.
Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW)
(See the Reflective Practice section for more details on what is the ISW and my involvement with this community). There is a growing interest in establishing the presence of the ISW in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Recently, Alice Mcpherson wrote a thesis on “the ISW as a transformative learning process” (2001, Simon Fraser University). Having been involved with this workshop in the context of math-only participants, I’m interested in sharing with the community what we have observed over the last three years of running this workshop at the UBC Department of Mathematics. An article is in the works for Spring 2013. This is joint work with Warren Code, Djun Kim and Joanne Nakonechny.
UBC Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI)
The goal of the CWSEI is to achieve highly effective, evidence-based science education for all post-secondary students by applying the latest advances in pedagogical and organizational excellence.
There are two aspects to the CWSEI’s “evidence-based” approach:
Guiding efforts by the established evidence base (research) on how people learn science and effective pedagogical approaches.
Obtaining evidence as to the student learning achieved with current and new practices.
I have two main interactions with the CWSEI. First, my contribution to the work of Warren Code (who is a Science Teaching and Learning Fellow for the CWSEI at the Math Department). Second, my regular attendance of the CWSEI weekly reading group which discusses paper published in the science education literature.
Conferences
- October 2012: 9th International Open Education conference in Vancouver, BC. (Also there as a speaker, see talks above)
- June 2012: The Legacy of R.L. Moore – (Problem-based learning) in Austin, TX
- May 2012: CTLT Institute at UBC. (Also there as a speaker, see talks above)
- April 2012: Changing the Culture: Good Questions, Big Ideas by the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in Vancouver, BC.
- February 2012: XV Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (SIGMAA on RUME) in Portland, OR
- November 2011: Aboriginal students in math and sciences, SFU, Vancouver, BC
- May 2011: CTLT Institute at UBC.
- May 2010: Roundtable on Math Education in the PIMS Universities, BIRS, Banff, AB