PSTUM-List,
This year we have been running a seminar on teaching undergraduate
mathematics designed to help our graduate students improve our teaching.
The seminar is optional, and attendance has generally been low. I'm
wondering if anyone on the list has experience with attendance-optional,
math department teaching seminars. What, if anything, have you found
particular effective in motivating graduate students to attend?
If it helps, here's the seminar's web site:
http://abel.math.harvard.edu/preceptor/tums/
Thanks in advance for your help!
Derek
--
Derek Bruff, Preceptor
Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
Derek:
Seminar attendance is always an issue as other demands are always
present. Having said this,
food is always a nice attractor. Faculty encouragement also helps
graduate students understand that teaching IS important. Nothing like
having a faculty member saying something like, "Shouldn't you be
spending some more time on your research rather than going to that
workshop?" to really get the message across that teaching is not
important. Perhaps another element in all of this is a notion of
ownership. Your topics look great, and I would love to attend them, but
maybe the students don't have a sense of having their questions
answered. Could you have an initial meeting at the beginning of the
year, made up of faculty and grad students, to talk about the importance
of teaching and ask them (grad students) about the topics they would
like to have in the first semester? Another possibility would be to
include faculty in the sessions as well to underline the idea that
teaching is important. (This idea of including faculty may or may not
be a good idea given issues of peer development, but it might work.)
Just some thoughts....
Good luck!
Joanne
pstum-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu wrote:
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>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>than "Re: Contents of PSTUM-list digest..."
>
>
>Today's Topics:
>
> 1. luring graduate students. (Bruce Reznick)
> 2. Re: Motivating grad students (Kenneth P. Bogart)
> 3. Re: Motivating Graduate Students (S. Hauk)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:13:07 -0600 (CST)
>From: Bruce Reznick <reznick(a)math.uiuc.edu>
>Subject: [PSTUM-list] luring graduate students.
>To: <pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
>Message-ID:
> <Pine.GSO.4.33.0502211102160.8735-100000(a)u52.math.uiuc.edu>
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
>Derek --
>
>Our graduate director is a big believer in pizza, soda and other free
>food. In an ideal world, bribery wouldn't be necessary, but you asked.
>
>I guess I should introduce myself. I'm essentially a research
>mathematician who has always had a strong interest in good teaching, even
>in the bad old days of the 70's and 80's, when those interests were
>thought to be mutually exclusive. [Two true stories from those days:
>In my first week of my first job, another newly hired colleague asked
>"You seem to like teaching, why didn't you try to get a job at a
>4-year school". The first time my Head nominated me for a teaching
>award, a concerned senior colleague asked me if that meant I wasn't
>getting tenure.]
>
>After I got tenure in `84, I wrote a teaching guide for our grad student
>orientation, and after several incaranations, it currently resides at
>
>http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~reznick/ciu.html
>
>Comments are always welcome; I ought to do another version before I
>retire. When it comes to teaching advice, I'm full of it.
>
>-- Bruce
>
>On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 pstum-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu wrote:
>
>
>
>>Send PSTUM-list mailing list submissions to
>> pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>>
>>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>> http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
>>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> pstum-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>>
>>You can reach the person managing the list at
>> pstum-list-owner(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>>
>>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>than "Re: Contents of PSTUM-list digest..."
>>
>>
>>Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. Motivating grad students (Derek Bruff)
>>
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 1
>>Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:10:07 -0500
>>From: Derek Bruff <bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu>
>>Subject: [PSTUM-list] Motivating grad students
>>To: Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics
>> <pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
>>Message-ID: <BE3F720F.534A%bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>>
>>PSTUM-List,
>>
>>This year we have been running a seminar on teaching undergraduate
>>mathematics designed to help our graduate students improve our teaching.
>>The seminar is optional, and attendance has generally been low. I'm
>>wondering if anyone on the list has experience with attendance-optional,
>>math department teaching seminars. What, if anything, have you found
>>particular effective in motivating graduate students to attend?
>>
>>If it helps, here's the seminar's web site:
>>
>>http://abel.math.harvard.edu/preceptor/tums/
>>
>>Thanks in advance for your help!
>>
>>Derek
>>
>>--
>>Derek Bruff, Preceptor
>>Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
>>Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
>>Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>PSTUM-list mailing list
>>PSTUM-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>>http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
>>
>>
>>End of PSTUM-list Digest, Vol 2, Issue 17
>>*****************************************
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: 21 Feb 2005 14:45:44 EST
>From: Kenneth.P.Bogart(a)Dartmouth.EDU (Kenneth P. Bogart)
>Subject: Re: [PSTUM-list] Motivating grad students
>To: pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu, pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
> (Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics)
>Cc: Kim Rheinlander <Kim.Rheinlander(a)Dartmouth.EDU>
>Message-ID: <50263244(a)newvixen.Dartmouth.EDU>
>Content-Type: text/plain
>
>Hi All. I think my earlier attempt at a post was before the listserve was
>actually running. So I'll begin with my introduction.
>
>I'm Ken Bogart. My only full-time job has been teaching at Dartmouth since
>1968. My research for years has been in various branches of combinatorics, but
>around 1995 I caught the bug of wanting to apply research in how people learn
>mathematics to the teaching of undergraduates. (This was the resul of being
>asked to participate in our teaching seminar, described below). Over the years
>this has changed my research agenda and I now think of research in how
>undergraduates learn mathematics as my primary interest.
>
>My short answer to Derek's post is that unless students perceive the seminar as
>a more important use of their time than preparing for qualifying exams or
>writing a thesis, the only hope is, as Bruce Resnick suggests, to bribe them
>with food. But in the long run, if the tradeoff of food for time cuts into what
>they perceive as the department's top priorities for them, they will stop
>participating. In our department we have flexible rules and inflexible rules
>for graduate students. The three most inflexible rules are
>
>1. You have to write (and successfully defend) a thesis.
>
>2. You have to teach at least two (ten week) courses on your own, and to be
>allowed to do so, you must take the teaching seminar.
>
>3. You have to pass qualifying exams in a timely way.
>
>I list them in this order, because the timeliness of the teaching seminar is
>less flexible than the timliness of qualifying exams. We have been consistent
>in enforcing requirement 2 so that it is now a part of our graduate student
>culture that this is something everyone does and it is part of our faculty
>culture that we cut our thesis advisees slack when they are in the teaching
>seminar or when they are teaching their courses.
>
>Dartmouth has had some sort of teaching seminar since the mid seventies. It
>began as an opportunity for (second year) grad students who were about to teach
>on their own to give two one-hour practice lectures with 3 faculty and all the
>other second year graduate students attending and trying to act like
>undergraduates. Eventually it was undermined significantly when a senior
>faculty member who was chair of the seminar committee decided fifteen minute
>lectures were long enough. After that it was hard to bring up issues of student
>involvement, etc., because there wasn't enough time for the grad students to
>really get going in their practice lectures. In the late eighties when I was
>chair, faculty members Dorothy Wallace and Marcia Groszek wrote a proposal with
>Claudia Henrion from Middlebury to FIPSE to desing a seminar that would use the
>research literature of math education as a basis for a required summer-long
>seminar (with lots of practical experience) for all grad students who were going
>to begin teaching the following year. It ended up getting funded by Pew
>Foundation, and the department approved the plan that resulted: The graduate
>teaching seminar at Dartmouth is effectively a ten quarter-hour graduate course
>in which graduate students who are preparing to be undergraduate teachers read
>and discuss the literature of how undergraduates (and others) learn mathematics,
>prepare and run two one-week workshops for high school students (in which they
>attempt to put what they have gleaned from the research literature into
>practice), engage in practice of various skills that are hoped to be useful to
>them in teaching, practice teach in two one-hour classes that are being run by
>other faculty members in Dartmouth's summer term, and reflect on their
>activities. We make heavy use of videotape to give the grduate students fodder
>for reflection.
>
>When I stopped being chair, I was recruited to join the seminar teaching staff
>as part of Dartmouth's Math Across the Curriculum grant. (It funded two
>teachers for the seminar for five years, and allowed Dorothy, Marcia, and then
>me to train several other faculty members in the methods.)
>
>I don't recall any complaints about graduate student teaching since we
>instituted the seminar. It is required of all students when they make the
>transition at the end of the second year from being TAs to being in charge of
>their own courses or sections of courses.
>
> The administrator for the seminar is Kim Rheinlander at Dartmouth, and
>information about the seminar is available from her or from any of the above
>faculty members. Visitors, either short-term or long-term,
>including a limited number of graduate students from other institutions, are
>welcome. In particualr, we are happy to have faculty members from other
>institutions not only observe but co-teach the seminar in order to become
>familiar with our methods. We have a long range project of creating a web-page
>for the seminar, but that has so far fallen victim to our perceptions about our
>own institution's priorities for faculty members!
>
>Ken Bogart
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 3
>Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:29:09 -0700
>From: "S. Hauk" <hauk(a)unco.edu>
>Subject: [PSTUM-list] Re: Motivating Graduate Students
>To: pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>Message-ID: <2652A3A2-8471-11D9-8E5A-000A95AEF880(a)unco.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
>Hi,
> A few suggestions:
>1. The meetings should be on a predictable, REGULAR BASIS so that grad
>students can plan to attend (modeling one of the important strategies
>for successful teaching: Planning). This is not the same as regularly
>announcing an irregularly scheduled meeting (e.g., always announcing a
>meeting two weeks in advance).
>
>2. Make clear in announcements what kind of INFORMATION AND ACTIVITIES
>can be expected (from what I see on the web, only the information part
>of this is generally offered).
>
>3. Another key to increasing attendance is DISTRIBUTION. Remind
>teaching faculty (not just grad students) that the regularly scheduled
>meeting is coming up in 7 days and in 2 days. Do this on the web,
>through email, and on flyers. For flyers, choose a distinctive color
>for the teaching seminar and always put teaching seminar flyers on this
>same color. These flyers should be BOTH: distributed to mailboxes AND
>posted in places frequented by teaching faculty (e.g., over every copy
>machine in the department - give them something to read in that
>photo-copy-zen state of mind). Also, remove the flyer as soon as the
>meeting is over or post flyers that list SEVERAL upcoming meetings and
>leave in place for a long time (the first strategy is actually more
>likely to generate attendance, since the old flyer disappears and a
>blank spot on the wall exists for a bit before the new flyer is posted).
>
>4. Personally invite five people to the meeting, one at a time. For
>each who promises to attend, ask them to commit to bringing a friend.
>
>Shandy
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>PSTUM-list mailing list
>PSTUM-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
>
>
>End of PSTUM-list Digest, Vol 2, Issue 18
>*****************************************
>
>
--
Joanne Nakonechny, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
Science Centre for Learning and Teaching
(Skylight), Faculty of Science
#175-6221 University Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z1
Tel: 604-822-4691 Fax: 604-822-4282
E-mail: nakonechny(a)science.ubc.ca
Hi,
A few suggestions:
1. The meetings should be on a predictable, REGULAR BASIS so that grad
students can plan to attend (modeling one of the important strategies
for successful teaching: Planning). This is not the same as regularly
announcing an irregularly scheduled meeting (e.g., always announcing a
meeting two weeks in advance).
2. Make clear in announcements what kind of INFORMATION AND ACTIVITIES
can be expected (from what I see on the web, only the information part
of this is generally offered).
3. Another key to increasing attendance is DISTRIBUTION. Remind
teaching faculty (not just grad students) that the regularly scheduled
meeting is coming up in 7 days and in 2 days. Do this on the web,
through email, and on flyers. For flyers, choose a distinctive color
for the teaching seminar and always put teaching seminar flyers on this
same color. These flyers should be BOTH: distributed to mailboxes AND
posted in places frequented by teaching faculty (e.g., over every copy
machine in the department - give them something to read in that
photo-copy-zen state of mind). Also, remove the flyer as soon as the
meeting is over or post flyers that list SEVERAL upcoming meetings and
leave in place for a long time (the first strategy is actually more
likely to generate attendance, since the old flyer disappears and a
blank spot on the wall exists for a bit before the new flyer is posted).
4. Personally invite five people to the meeting, one at a time. For
each who promises to attend, ask them to commit to bringing a friend.
Shandy
Hi All. I think my earlier attempt at a post was before the listserve was
actually running. So I'll begin with my introduction.
I'm Ken Bogart. My only full-time job has been teaching at Dartmouth since
1968. My research for years has been in various branches of combinatorics, but
around 1995 I caught the bug of wanting to apply research in how people learn
mathematics to the teaching of undergraduates. (This was the resul of being
asked to participate in our teaching seminar, described below). Over the years
this has changed my research agenda and I now think of research in how
undergraduates learn mathematics as my primary interest.
My short answer to Derek's post is that unless students perceive the seminar as
a more important use of their time than preparing for qualifying exams or
writing a thesis, the only hope is, as Bruce Resnick suggests, to bribe them
with food. But in the long run, if the tradeoff of food for time cuts into what
they perceive as the department's top priorities for them, they will stop
participating. In our department we have flexible rules and inflexible rules
for graduate students. The three most inflexible rules are
1. You have to write (and successfully defend) a thesis.
2. You have to teach at least two (ten week) courses on your own, and to be
allowed to do so, you must take the teaching seminar.
3. You have to pass qualifying exams in a timely way.
I list them in this order, because the timeliness of the teaching seminar is
less flexible than the timliness of qualifying exams. We have been consistent
in enforcing requirement 2 so that it is now a part of our graduate student
culture that this is something everyone does and it is part of our faculty
culture that we cut our thesis advisees slack when they are in the teaching
seminar or when they are teaching their courses.
Dartmouth has had some sort of teaching seminar since the mid seventies. It
began as an opportunity for (second year) grad students who were about to teach
on their own to give two one-hour practice lectures with 3 faculty and all the
other second year graduate students attending and trying to act like
undergraduates. Eventually it was undermined significantly when a senior
faculty member who was chair of the seminar committee decided fifteen minute
lectures were long enough. After that it was hard to bring up issues of student
involvement, etc., because there wasn't enough time for the grad students to
really get going in their practice lectures. In the late eighties when I was
chair, faculty members Dorothy Wallace and Marcia Groszek wrote a proposal with
Claudia Henrion from Middlebury to FIPSE to desing a seminar that would use the
research literature of math education as a basis for a required summer-long
seminar (with lots of practical experience) for all grad students who were going
to begin teaching the following year. It ended up getting funded by Pew
Foundation, and the department approved the plan that resulted: The graduate
teaching seminar at Dartmouth is effectively a ten quarter-hour graduate course
in which graduate students who are preparing to be undergraduate teachers read
and discuss the literature of how undergraduates (and others) learn mathematics,
prepare and run two one-week workshops for high school students (in which they
attempt to put what they have gleaned from the research literature into
practice), engage in practice of various skills that are hoped to be useful to
them in teaching, practice teach in two one-hour classes that are being run by
other faculty members in Dartmouth's summer term, and reflect on their
activities. We make heavy use of videotape to give the grduate students fodder
for reflection.
When I stopped being chair, I was recruited to join the seminar teaching staff
as part of Dartmouth's Math Across the Curriculum grant. (It funded two
teachers for the seminar for five years, and allowed Dorothy, Marcia, and then
me to train several other faculty members in the methods.)
I don't recall any complaints about graduate student teaching since we
instituted the seminar. It is required of all students when they make the
transition at the end of the second year from being TAs to being in charge of
their own courses or sections of courses.
The administrator for the seminar is Kim Rheinlander at Dartmouth, and
information about the seminar is available from her or from any of the above
faculty members. Visitors, either short-term or long-term,
including a limited number of graduate students from other institutions, are
welcome. In particualr, we are happy to have faculty members from other
institutions not only observe but co-teach the seminar in order to become
familiar with our methods. We have a long range project of creating a web-page
for the seminar, but that has so far fallen victim to our perceptions about our
own institution's priorities for faculty members!
Ken Bogart
Derek --
Our graduate director is a big believer in pizza, soda and other free
food. In an ideal world, bribery wouldn't be necessary, but you asked.
I guess I should introduce myself. I'm essentially a research
mathematician who has always had a strong interest in good teaching, even
in the bad old days of the 70's and 80's, when those interests were
thought to be mutually exclusive. [Two true stories from those days:
In my first week of my first job, another newly hired colleague asked
"You seem to like teaching, why didn't you try to get a job at a
4-year school". The first time my Head nominated me for a teaching
award, a concerned senior colleague asked me if that meant I wasn't
getting tenure.]
After I got tenure in `84, I wrote a teaching guide for our grad student
orientation, and after several incaranations, it currently resides at
http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~reznick/ciu.html
Comments are always welcome; I ought to do another version before I
retire. When it comes to teaching advice, I'm full of it.
-- Bruce
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 pstum-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu wrote:
> Send PSTUM-list mailing list submissions to
> pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> pstum-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> pstum-list-owner(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of PSTUM-list digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Motivating grad students (Derek Bruff)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:10:07 -0500
> From: Derek Bruff <bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu>
> Subject: [PSTUM-list] Motivating grad students
> To: Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics
> <pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
> Message-ID: <BE3F720F.534A%bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> PSTUM-List,
>
> This year we have been running a seminar on teaching undergraduate
> mathematics designed to help our graduate students improve our teaching.
> The seminar is optional, and attendance has generally been low. I'm
> wondering if anyone on the list has experience with attendance-optional,
> math department teaching seminars. What, if anything, have you found
> particular effective in motivating graduate students to attend?
>
> If it helps, here's the seminar's web site:
>
> http://abel.math.harvard.edu/preceptor/tums/
>
> Thanks in advance for your help!
>
> Derek
>
> --
> Derek Bruff, Preceptor
> Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
> Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
> Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> PSTUM-list mailing list
> PSTUM-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
> http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
>
>
> End of PSTUM-list Digest, Vol 2, Issue 17
> *****************************************
>
PSTUM List,
I know several of you are interested in preparing and supporting adjuncts,
and I thought you might want to be aware of a new book on this subject. The
scope of the book is not limited to mathematics departments, and I haven't
read the book, so I don't know how useful it is. But, nonetheless, here is
some information on it. If you've read the book, it would be great if you
could post a short review to the list. Thanks!
Derek
ADJUNCT FACULTY IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES
An Academic Administrator¹s Guide to Recruiting, Supporting,
and Retaining Great Teachers
Desna L. Wallin, Editor
Department chairs and deans are responsible for the hiring and direct
supervision of adjunct faculty, but a number of factorssuch as lack of
current teaching experience or preoccupation with other administrative
functionsmay keep them from sufficiently providing for the needs of this
critical group.
This book provides department chairs and deans with examples of successful
programs that are in place at a variety of community and technical colleges
across the United States and that can be implemented into a two-year system.
All examples are models of support for adjunct faculty and highlight the
important connection between teaching quality and effective hiring,
orientation, acculturation, and professional development practices for
adjunct faculty.
6 x 9 $39.95 cloth 246 pp 2005 ISBN 1-882982-81-9
For more details or to order, point your web browser to:
https://secure.aidcvt.com/ank/ProdDetails.asp?ID=1882982819&PG=1&Type=BL
--
Derek Bruff, Preceptor
Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
Hi,
So, an important issue to concern ourselves with in any collecting of
video (or audio) data is what the federal government regulations calls
"research with human subjects." Federal guidelines are the minimum
collection to which institutions that receive any federal or state
funding must conform. The quotes below are from the Code of Federal
Regulations, Title 45 - Public Welfare, Part 46 - Protection of Human
Subjects < http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm >.
"Research means a systematic investigation, including research
development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute
to generalizable knowledge. Activities which meet this definition
constitute research for purposes of this policy, whether or not they
are conducted or supported under a program which is considered
research for other purposes. For example, some demonstration and
service programs may include research activities."
In other words: collecting video data in a classroom and using it to
train other teachers can be considered "research" for the purposes of
the regulation. Consequently, it may be necessary, depending on the
Institutional Review Board (or its equivalent) at your institution, to
obtain written permission from anyone whose image, voice, name, or
other identifiable information can be ascertained from the video.
Interpretations of the statutes are sometimes broad and sometimes
narrow, depending on local, state, and institutional guidelines. The
issue of protection of human subjects is an important one and is taken
very seriously by the legal-eagles at most institutions. I suggest you
consult with the chair of your institutional IRB to find out what sort
of permissions (if any) they feel are appropriate before sharing video
data.
It turns out that for the video-case materials I am developing, I am
required to obtain a liability release from each person in the room
when the video data is captured in order to use the actual video on a
nationally released, commercially available, product.
Shandy
On Saturday, February 12, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Derek wrote:
>> Derek,
>> I have a couple of questions, first:
>> 1. How did you secure liability release from all the people in
>> your video
>> clips so that they could be used in your TA training?
>
> I received permission from the teachers involved to use the footage
> for the
> purposes of TA training. Is there more needed?
>
Dear Colleagues,
My name is Gary Harris and I am the Director of Undergraduate Programs
in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech
University. In the spring of 2000 I was asked by our chair and the
director of graduate programs to create a 3 credit hour course devoted
to issues involving teaching math at the undergraduate level. I would
like to say that this was motivated for all the obvious great reasons;
however, I suspect the main motivation was the fact that our state
regulatory agency requires that all instructors of record (aka actual
teachers of the classes) for college level math classes have at least 18
hours of graduate level mathematics credit, and our university decided
to get serious about adhering to this rule. Hence this would be one way
for our new TA's to get an extra 3 hours graduate math credit their
first semester, while at the same time maybe picking up something
useful. In any event I began to look for appropriate materials and
activities and was ready to offer the course to 20 new teaching
assistants in the fall of 2000. The course has been offered each fall
semester thereafter.
Early on I helped to field test some of Friedberg's case studies and
have used them regularly. I also use material from Rishel's Handbook
for Mathematics Teaching Assistants, as well as other materials. Also a
significant part of the course involves video taping and class
evaluations of student mini-lectures.
I currently have a graduate student working on a Masters Thesis in which
he is trying to assess the effects of our course on our graduate
students attitudes and practice with regard to teaching mathematics at
the college level. He and I would be very interested to hear about
experiences any of you may have with such a course, as well as pertinent
references.
I look forward participating in an interesting discussion on this timely
and, I think, very important topic,
Gary Harris
>
Derek,
I have a couple of questions, first:
1. How did you secure liability release from all the people in your
video clips so that they could be used in your TA training?
2. What the clip "features" may be coded in several ways. There are
some software packages out there that allow such cataloging and
multiple codings. Have you already chosen a software package (e.g.,
some QSR package)?
3. For leading discussion, my suggestion is to look at the kinds of
questions available in S. Friedberg (Ed.)(2001). Teaching mathematics
in colleges and universities: case studies for today's classroom,
American Mathematical Society. Web site for the project:
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/math/publicprojectPI/
Though there is a link to summaries of the cases on the site, there are
no sample questions.
Now, to address your questions. Things to consider to focus the efforts
of the TAs:
a. determine the types of teaching/tutoring experience of TA
participants; if no one in the room has any experience, the use of a
video-case may generate little discussion or it may result in a lot of
discussion that may not be easy to get focused on effective teaching
and learning (because little divergence of viewpoint may be present).
One way of addressing this is to set up the video-case BEFORE it is
seen and direct the attention of TAs to the tasks they will be asked to
perform after seeing the case (i.e., give them b., below, and ask them
to review it before the case is offered). In my work with new college
teachers I spend several hours on us getting to know each other before
introducing a case for discussion. If there are a variety of
perspectives on teaching and learning among the TAs, it helps to pair
them (see b.) heterogeneously. Two novices working together can have
trouble attending to the LEARNING - they will tend to focus on any
instructor "telling" going on and evaluate it as if the "telling" is
teaching.
b. break participants into pairs; ask each pair to list the reasons
(mathematical and other) that they think are behind a
student/instructor confusion or communication difficulty
i. what was said? what appears to have been heard?
ii. what questions would they (the individuals in the pair of TAs)
ask to increase clarity.? NOTE: This instructs participants to generate
QUESTIONS, not things they would "say" or "tell" someone.
iii. what should happen next? why?
Ooh, gotta jet to class. That's it for now.
Sincerely,
Shandy
> From: Derek Bruff <bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu>
> Date: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:47:24 PM America/Denver
> To: Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics
> <pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
> Subject: [PSTUM-list] More on Video Case Studies
> Reply-To: Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate
> Mathematics <pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
>
>
> PSTUM List,
>
> I have two related requests for information.
>
> 1) I'm working on assembling a library of video clips of teachers in
> action
> for use in TA training. My initial goal is to index or code the clips
> in a
> way that facilitates finding a clip that features, for example,
>
> ...the definition of the derivative or
> ...students presenting work at the board or
> ...a teacher with particularly effective oratory skills.
>
> I'm wondering if there are any existing coding schemes that I might
> use to
> help me index the clips in this way. Any ideas?
>
> 2) I'm leading an upcoming session (tomorrow actually!) in our TA
> training
> seminar in which I plan to present a few interesting video clips from
> this
> library-in-progress and lead a discussion about the clips. Has anyone
> led a
> similar session (for TAs or other groups), and, if so, what types of
> questions did you ask to help direct the discussion?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Derek
>
>
> --
> Derek Bruff, Preceptor
> Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
> Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
> Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> PSTUM-list mailing list
> PSTUM-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
> http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
PSTUM List,
I have two related requests for information.
1) I'm working on assembling a library of video clips of teachers in action
for use in TA training. My initial goal is to index or code the clips in a
way that facilitates finding a clip that features, for example,
...the definition of the derivative or
...students presenting work at the board or
...a teacher with particularly effective oratory skills.
I'm wondering if there are any existing coding schemes that I might use to
help me index the clips in this way. Any ideas?
2) I'm leading an upcoming session (tomorrow actually!) in our TA training
seminar in which I plan to present a few interesting video clips from this
library-in-progress and lead a discussion about the clips. Has anyone led a
similar session (for TAs or other groups), and, if so, what types of
questions did you ask to help direct the discussion?
Thanks in advance!
Derek
--
Derek Bruff, Preceptor
Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
