Blogging from The Tenth Southern Hemisphere Conference on the Teaching and Learning of Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics

Dr Greg Oates -image taken from here.

Live blogging: Note that these are notes I’ve taken live, but will edit this today into a more readable format. I want to put this up straight away though to see if I have any obvious misunderstanding. Equations will also be put into more readable format ASAP.

Dedication to Judy Paterson

Discussion of the DATUM project: The Development and Analysis of the Teaching of Undergraduate Mathematics professional development discussion group.

Schoenfeld, A. H. (2010). How we think. A theory of goal-oriented decision making and its educational applications

Being videoed and then analysed is daunting. There’s often a disconnect between how we see ourselves, and how our colleagues see us.

Project at University of Auckland to video lecturers. At the beginning of the project there would be lecture notes taken by a colleague.

The lecturer would choose a particular piece of the lecture and that would be analysed in detail.

Schoenfeld’s claim: By watching a video he can work out resources, orientations and goals of the lecturer (ROG model)

References:

During the analysis, every conversation would go from talking about pedagogy to mathematics – this was a surprise!

Three lecturers per semester

Example: Clip from the pilot stages of the study – class of 200 students.

Taken from a maths 102 class – up to integration and differentiation. A student asked a question, but it was a surprising question and made the lecturer realise that he’d designed the lecture badly. “Why didn’t I think of this when I designed the lecture?”

Actually maybe it’s better that the students ask!

Amazing growth for Tanya Evans.

From:fromTo:

to

Paper based on the DATUM project:

talk10

More information here.

Conclusions:

  • It’s not a trivial process – it involves a significant commitment from the participants, but it’s fun
  • Each step has its own particular benefits eg different perspectives & insights from watching colleagues teach, reflection on our teaching
  • The development of trust is essential. It is preferable to induct members to the group 1, or at most 2, at a time
  • The ROG framework is highly recommended since it was effective in developing and focusing the project, and enhanced discussion, but may not be essential
  • Community members encouraged to develop self-awareness of their teaching style and to use this as a catalyst for change
  • Quality control: Can improve consistency in notation and terminology for the same content/techniques in different courses
  • Interdisciplinary approach fosters professional connections between different mathematical areas (pure, applied maths, maths ed).

Comment from Prof Deborah King: Would be great to get students into the analysis of the videos

How clear is this post?