Mathematics & Statistics Colloquium - Dr. Warren Code - Friday, November 23rd

Mathematics & Statistics Colloquium

Speaker: Dr. Warren Code (Skylight, UBC)

Date: Friday, November 23rd

Time / Place: 3:30 pm in ARTS 241

Title / Abstract: What I've learned in calculus class

This talk will offer a summary of lessons learned in teaching and research on teaching since my first time teaching calculus as a graduate student. After introducing some of the context for calculus teaching in North America more generally and key findings in related research, I will discuss results from a careful comparison of large-class teaching methods where one section's instructional choices encouraged more active learning ("clicker" questions, small-group discussions, worksheets) during a significant amount of class time, building on assigned pre-class tasks. This will include examples of student misconceptions and the assessments we used to reveal them, as well as some of the teaching approaches we've used in (usually large) classes informed by existing research on student learning of undergraduate mathematics.

Bio: Dr. Warren Code is the Associate Director of the Science Centre for Learning and Teaching (Skylight; skylight.science.ubc.ca) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he leads, advises and assists in planning, research/evaluation and management for a range of teaching and learning projects across UBC's Faculty of Science. A majority of his time in recent years was spent as the Acting Director for the final phases of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (cwsei.ubc.ca), a large initiative involving department-based fellows partnering with faculty on transforming undergraduate education in UBC's Science departments. He was previously one of those fellows in the UBC Mathematics Department, studying teaching methods and student success in calculus and introductory scientific programming, along with some teaching. He is currently investigating the overall impact of the initiative in terms of teaching changes, student learning and program success, and advising other institutions attempting similar kinds of initiatives. Warren received his MSc in Mathematics from U of S in 2003.

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