CMS 75th+1 Anniversary Summer Meeting
Ottawa, June 7 - 11, 2021
- ANDIE BURAZIN, University of Toronto Mississauga
Mind the gap [PDF]
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In pre-Covid times, we made assumptions about our students’ background knowledge. Sometimes as the expert we forget how it is for the novice to experience and understand math and its language. But has the online teaching and learning environment, during this Covid disruption and potentially even when we get back to some in-person normality, made the gap between instructors and students larger from course expectations to curriculum to assessments?
- SEAN FITZPATRICK, University of Lethbridge
The online shift: teaching with empathy [PDF]
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As mathematicians, we are enamoured with out subject, and enter the classroom believing that our students, once exposed to the beauty of mathematics, will be too. Of course, things do not usually turn out as planned. What matters, perhaps, is not what we write on the board, but how students feel while they're in our class.
A colleague in our university's Teaching Centre made the following observation during a meeting: there are two types of university teacher -- those who care most about their subject, and those who care most about their students. During our pandemic-induced shift online, I would argue that of the two, the latter was more successful.
In a campus-wide student perception survey that asked students how their instructors best supported their learning this year, there was one recurring theme: empathy. Students got the most out of the courses where they felt their instructors understood the challenges they were facing, and were willing to provide flexibility and support. I'll discuss some lessons learned, and how they will impact my teaching going forward, whether in person or online.
- BRIAN FORREST, University of Waterloo
Teaching Mathematics Online: Then, Now and Going Forward. [PDF]
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In this talk I will look back at nearly 20 years of developing and teaching online mathematics courses. I will start with a brief over view of where we came from and then focus on how things have changed, particularly over the last year. I will end the talk with some thoughts on where we might go from here.
- VESELIN JUNGIC, Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University
COVIDization of my classroom [PDF]
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My experience teaching online over the last year was mixed and included very low points and some victories too. I will use a few examples to illustrate this period in an attempt to explain the significance of this wide range of experiences.
I will also describe an unexpected encounter in a park on a sunny afternoon that made me realize that 2020/2021 was a lost year in my career of over 40 years as a teacher.
- MIROSLAV LOVRIC, McMaster University
If online then A else B [PDF]
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I will present blueprints for the scientific programming course (in Python) that I will teach in Winter 2022, either face to face or online. Having taught a similar course in pre-Covid times, and then in Winter 2021, I have a variety of experiences and ideas which I hope will make my course richer, attractive and beneficial to my students.
- ZOHREH SHAHBAZI, University Of Toronto Scarborough
Assessment in Online Math Courses [PDF]
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In this session, we explore traditional and modern practices, as well as my personal thoughts and ideas for employing assessment tools that enhance learning mathematics topics in online environments. Designing assessment methods for online courses with well integrated teaching activities and learning goals has a significant role in reducing students' anxiety and academic misconduct cases.
- PETER TAYLOR, Queen's
Teaching in the Global Village [PDF]
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Covid-19 has given us an ultimate experience of the global village: virus particles, viral videos and my calculus solutions now travel effortlessly around the globe. This has been happening for a while but the past year of online learning has transformed expectations. Students now ask: “if it’s okay to learn from Khan Academy, why is it not okay to grab hold of this elegant calculation that my friend told me to check out?” It’s hard to construct good problems; I am thinking that I will no longer distribute my good solutions.