Welcome to the homepage of the teaching lunch seminar at the math
department in the University of Toronto. We will be meeting virtually
on Zoom at https://utoronto.zoom.us/my/safibn
on Mondays at noon, although we may change some weeks around
to accomodate speakers. Speaker lists and abstracts are updated below.
Talks are expected to be no longer than 25 minutes, followed by a 20
minute discussion, and a 15 minute experience sharing where we go
around the room and share something from the last week.
If this sounds like fun to you, and if you'd like to join our mailing
list, please throw us your e-mail in the form at the bottom of this
page.
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an e-mail at
Self-Determination Theory and its Applications to Teaching
What motivates our students? Which factors impact their motivation to learn? Can we change their motivation? If so, how?
Self-determination theory can help answer these questions and provide strategies to improve our classes and syllabi.
March 8 (Tuesday!) -- Shay Fuchs
Investigating the Impact of Active Learning Methods in Large Coordinated Calculus Courses.
We describe a study designed to investigate the impact of
active-learning methods on student learning in a large, first-year,
multi-section Calculus for Life sciences courses at UTM. This is
a joint work with Gurpreet Sahmbi.
Feb. 28 -- Stan Yoshinobu
Equitable Teaching Practices for Graduate TAs and CIs
This workshop is a practical, hands-on session for graduate students.
The main activity will be to consider and discuss scenarios that can
arise in class, where equity or inclusion is at stake. Some resources
will also be shared to support continued discussion of the ideas.
Feb. 14 -- Sarah Mayes-Tang
Teaching with Heart: A Valentine’s Day Discussion about Trauma & Math Teaching
As we near the two-year anniversary of the initial COVID-19
lock-downs, we are confronting more students who are actively dealing
with trauma than ever before. Addressing our students’ trauma is not
easy, and taking it on ourselves leads to compassion fatigue. I’ll
share some research about trauma in the classroom – what it is, how it
impacts learning, and how prevalent it is – and then share creative
design strategies from my own classroom that actively address trauma
but are also fulfilling for me. We’ll then open the floor to
brainstorm other practical ways that we can take care of ourselves
while also serving our students during these difficult times.
Feb. 7 -- Bernardo Galvao-Sousa
Collaborative Testing
This week, Bernardo will be telling us about collaborative testing.
There will be a presentation, followed by discussion and questions.
Slides are available Here
Jan. 31 -- Jason Siefken
What is understanding?
Jan. 24 -- Mary Pugh
Q & A
We continue with a lighter, less structured Q&A session with Mary
Pugh, who is a tenure-stream faculty member who cares about teaching,
isn't completely horrible at it, cares about students, and has been
around the block a number of times.
Jan. 18 -- Shai Cohen
Attribute Marking
"Attribute marking" is an unusual form of grading that is beginning to
gain popularity. With this system, each question is graded not using
a single number, but by giving a mark to each of the skills required
to solve the problem. For some years, we have seen variations of this
as courses use separate marks for the correctness of an answer and for
the clarity of the solution. In a second-chance engineering calculus
course, attribute marking has been fully implemented, with dozens of
learning outcomes graded. This is a complex system, but as they do
not tend to be afraid of spreadsheets, mathematicians are ideally
suited to using it.