Dear Colleagues,
My name is Kay Merseth and I teach at the graduate school of education at
Harvard. My specialty is case based study in the education of teachers at
the K-16 level. My colleagues and I have written several cases about high
school classrooms but I think many of the issues that are relevant here
would also apply for TF's at the undergraduate level. Our cases all stress
the mathematics, the pedagogy, the student comments and the context. It
would be very easy and quite exciting to compile some cases about
undergraduate teaching. I know Sol Friedberg at Boston College has work on
these some.
I attach a case to give you a sense of the materials that we use to train
teachers (that is if this listserve will accept attachments). Looking
forward to the conversations.
--On Thursday, February 03, 2005 12:00 PM -0500
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> 1. introduction: Gary Harris (Harris, Gary)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:21:03 -0600
> From: "Harris, Gary" <gary.harris(a)ttu.edu>
> Subject: [PSTUM-list] introduction: Gary Harris
> To: <pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
> Message-ID:
> <55CA02C1ECF1CB40B2A0AF7B32F0DFDD1BFB7000(a)BRONTES.net.ttu.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
Greetings all,
I am an Assistant in Math at Florida State University and part of my
job is to coordinate the training and evaluation of our TA's.
We usually have a 3-4 day training session before the semester begins
to get new TA's ready for recitations. We also have a 6 week course (5
hr/week) during the summer for both new and old TA's that goes into all
aspects of teaching both recitations and solo. This semester we are
trying a 6 week workshop (1.25 hr/week) focused solely presentations.
Historically, most of our TA's were asked to begin graduate school in
the summer so they could take our 6 week course. More recently, with
budget cuts only a small portion of our new TA's are now asked to begin
in the summer. We are also getter quite a few graduate students that do
not plan to go into academics. We have a good financial math and bio
math program that has attracted many students planning to go into
industry. Unfortunately, that also means that we have a lot of TA's
that do not see the value of teacher training.
Anyhow, I want to change our program so that it balances the needs of
our department to have qualified teachers with the needs of the
graduate students to not be "unreasonably" burdened with demands on
their time. I use quotes because what is an unreasonable burden is
debatable, but it is pretty clear that requiring a full 6 week TA class
is considered unreasonable for many of our TA's. I have some thoughts
on the directions I might take, but I think I will leave it unsaid for
now and instead ask what ideas do you have? Also, I would welcome any
materials you would be willing to share with me such as TA training
manuals, schedules, observations forms, and other misc forms or
information you find useful. Please feel free to use the e-mail address
given below to respond directly to me if you wish.
Thank you ahead of time for your feedback and/or materials!
Penelope Kirby
________________________________
Penelope Kirby
TA Training and Evaluation Coordinator
Department of Mathematics
Florida State University
Tallahassee FL 32306-4510
(850)644-0667, 108-E MCH
e-mail: pkirby(a)math.fsu.edu
I'm Donna Flint- I am an Associate Professor at South Dakota State
University, and took the role of TA supervisor last year. I had an
eventful first year and a half, to say the least- this is the first
semester when I have not had new TA's and new "experiences."
We have a Master's program only. Our graduate students start teaching
their first semester and have complete control of their classes from day
one. The only training we have before they start is a two-day
orientation session which includes discussion of "the rules," "the first
day and writing a syllabus," and "good teaching practices." Then they
each teach a couple of topics to the group. During their first semester,
they take a one-credit course in which we talk more about teaching,
review topics to be covered over the next week in their classes, and
talk about problems that arose during the week.
I attended both workshops on training TA's and learned a lot, but found
that many programs, since they have PhD programs, are able to invest
more time in training before the TA's start. I'm interested in how
programs that don't have the luxury of that extra semester for
preparation train their TA's.
My job is to organize and carry out the orientation sessions, teach the
class, observe the first semester TA's, and supervise all TA's,
generally by stopping by their office and asking how things are going
and answering questions. I also leave little "teaching tips" in their
boxes periodically. My job does NOT include choosing who gets to be a
TA, though it has included recommending dismissing TA's (three times
already).
I'm looking forward to hearing more!
Donna
Dr. Donna Flint
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
South Dakota State University
http://learn.sdstate.edu/flintd/flint/flint.html
He who laughs, lasts.
-----Original Message-----
From: pstum-list-bounces(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
[mailto:pstum-list-bounces@lists.fas.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Derek
Bruff
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 9:58 PM
To: Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics
Subject: [PSTUM-list] Welcome again!
Since we've had several dozen people subscribe to the list in the last
24 hours, I thought I would welcome everyone again to the Preparing and
Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics (PSTUM) mailing list.
The list has a lengthy name (and an acronym that unfortunately doesn't
roll off the tongue), but I think it describes the purpose of the list
very well. For more information about the list, consult the list's web
site:
http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
To get some discussion started and to get a feel for who has joined the
list, please introduce yourself and describe your roles in preparing and
supporting teachers of undergraduate mathematics. Do you work with
graduate students, junior faculty members, adjuncts, or some
combination? With what types of orientations and training sessions are
you involved? In what ways do you mentor and support the teachers with
which you work?
Also, feel free to post specific questions you might have about
mathematics TA and faculty development. Odds are, one of the 59 current
members of the list will have some experience from which you can
benefit.
Thanks!
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
Since we've had several dozen people subscribe to the list in the last 24
hours, I thought I would welcome everyone again to the Preparing and
Supporting Teachers of Undergraduate Mathematics (PSTUM) mailing list. The
list has a lengthy name (and an acronym that unfortunately doesn't roll off
the tongue), but I think it describes the purpose of the list very well.
For more information about the list, consult the list's web site:
http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list
To get some discussion started and to get a feel for who has joined the
list, please introduce yourself and describe your roles in preparing and
supporting teachers of undergraduate mathematics. Do you work with graduate
students, junior faculty members, adjuncts, or some combination? With what
types of orientations and training sessions are you involved? In what ways
do you mentor and support the teachers with which you work?
Also, feel free to post specific questions you might have about mathematics
TA and faculty development. Odds are, one of the 59 current members of the
list will have some experience from which you can benefit.
Thanks!
Derek
--
Derek Bruff, Preceptor
Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/
Shandy,
A couple of other projects using mathematics video cases that you
might want to look into: Video Cases for Mathematics Professional
Development (for teachers of grades 6-10, I think), directed by Judy
Mumme and Nanette Seago at WestEd, and the middle school math video
cases developed by Jo Boaler at Stanford. There are a number of other
videos of school mathematics teaching that weren't developed as
cases, but are used in K-12 teacher PD and teacher preparation; two
that come to mind are the TIMSS videos and Deborah Ball's hypermedia
materials (used in the Mathematics Teaching and Learning to Teach
project at the University of Michigan).
Dara
At 8:01 AM -0700 1/31/05, S. Hauk wrote:
>Hi,
> I am working on a grant proposal aimed at improving college
>mathematics teaching and learning through the creation of video-case
>tools for teacher-scholar development of mathematics Graduate
>Teaching Assistants and new faculty, and for enhancing the
>professional development of junior and senior faculty. The project
>creates a tool similar to the Integrating Mathematics and Pedagogy
>(IMAP) Project K-12 materials for teachers. However, among the
>significant differences between IMAP and the proposed cases are: (a)
>the video-case tools and accompanying text will be developed for an
>audience with a mastery of mathematics who have little or no formal
>training in pedagogy; (b) the case tools will be sufficiently
>self-contained that they can be used as part of a distance-learning
>course on college teaching; (c) the materials will include classroom
>video-clips as well as materials about out-of-classroom interactions
>like office hours, email communication, advising of undergraduate
>and graduate students, and communicating with junior and senior
>colleagues about teaching.
> Some field-test agreements are already in place as is an
>initial publication agreement with the CBMS and the AMS (who
>published Friedberg et alia's (2001) fictionalized case studies for
>college teaching book).
> I am looking for folks who are interested in field testing
>materials, perhaps even testing a case or two on a prototype DVD in
>Fall 2005 (also for anyone interested in becoming more significantly
>involved in the project). Please contact me directly at hauk(a)unco.edu
>
>Thanks,
>Shandy
>PS I also posted this message to the listserv hosted by Tim Gutmann
>on research and practice about TA and new faculty development:
>ta-research(a)list.une.edu (subscribe through
>http://list.une.edu/mailman/listinfo/ta-research )
>and to Derek Buff's new listserv: pstum-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>(subscribe through
>http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/pstum-list )
>
>====================================
>Shandy Hauk, hauk(a)unco.edu
>Department of Mathematics, CB122
>U. of Northern Colorado
>Greeley, CO 80639
>Phone: 970 351 2344 Fax: 970 351 1225
>=====================================
>
>
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