I was at a 5 day Project NExT workshop. I heard from a lot of interesting people and learned a lot about teaching. The thing that stood out to me the most was just how different math researchers are from math educators. Math researchers mostly share a feeling of contempt toward people, people are just means of discovering math, whereas math educators care only about people, math just happens to be thing they teach. I have not yet figured out which camp I fall in. Below are my raw notes from the five days.

Immediate takeaways that I can implement in class:

• In zoom meetings, restrict the speaking time to 10 mins.

• Norms for zoom meetings and breakout rooms:

  • share talk time
  • listen to understand
  • critique ideas not people
  • be present
  • embrace discomfort
  • treat everyone with respect
  • everyone has expertise
  • vegas rule: what’s said here stays here

• To try: breathing exercise at the start of class (just taking 5 slow breaths with your eyes closed)

• Only do an activity in class if you can point back to it three times later in the course.

• The entire session by Mariah Andersen

• Learn student’s names before the first day of class

• Make formal time for students to meet each other

• Set the expectation that you expect to see each of them during office hours

• Set the anticipation of struggle

• Have a personal story attached to make the subject more interesting to others

• And have enthusiasm!

• Find ways to let students know that you care about them.

• Get student to buy-in into learning by doing on the first day of class.

• Hand-out praise carefully! Take care to not discourage other students. Instead of saying things like “this is perfect” say things like “I like your method here” or “I like this mistake”, etc. Encourage hard work even if the final answer is incorrect.

• Take a whole day off every week

• Add things right away to your CV

• Leave notes for future you

• Maintain an urgent list and an important list

• Share math genealogy with students!

• Introduce students to Academic Research

• Tools for teaching Calculus:

  • https://activecalculus.org/
  • Calc Plot 3D

The glass is half-full because this is an opportunity to learn and try something new and for once your administration and/or colleagues won’t tell you no!

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• Day 1
  • 11:15am - Welcome session
  • 12:30am - Plenary Session - Are things that can be done better online
  • 2:30pm - Interacting Teaching Demonstrations
• Day 2
  • 11:15 am - Time management
  • 12:30 - Adriana Salerno - Overcoming anxiety in math classroom
  • 2:30 - Valerie Peterson - Orienting your class around inquiry
  • 3:34 - Ami Radunskaya - Modeling the world with DEs
• Day 3
  • 11:15 am - Erica Winterer, Philip Treisman - Day 1 rituals
  • 12:30 pm - Paul Seeburger - CalcPlot3D
  • 2:30 pm - Matt Boelkin - Active Learning with Active Calculus
  • 5:00 pm - Goal Setting & Planning
• Day 4
  • 11:15 am - Maria Andersen - Best Practices for Remote Teaching in Math
  • 2:30 pm - Jumpstarting your scholarship program - NSF Grants
• Day 5
  • 11:15 am - Discussions about getting permanent positions
  • 12:15 pm - Introduction to Teaching Groups
  • 2:30pm - Alissa Crans - Jumpstarting your scholarship program

Day 1

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Lol, our host did not show up to the introductory meeting. Had an amazingly awkward morning session. Thankfully, we had some fun folks in the audience.

11:15am - Welcome session

Introductory presentation by Dave Kung, the director of Project NExT, mostly logistics.

Useful tip:

• In zoom meetings, restrict the speaking time to 10 mins.

Norms for zoom meetings and breakout rooms that I can use in the future:

• share talk time
• listen to understand
• critique ideas not people
• be present
• embrace discomfort
• treat everyone with respect
• everyone has expertise
• vegas rule: what’s said here stays here

Why do students leave STEM majors?

• Discovered an aptitude for non-stem subjects. 76%
• Lost confidence due to low grades in the early years. 79%
• Associated lifestyle was not appealing. 58%
• Rewards not worth the effort. 17%
• Competitive culture makes it hard to belong. 80%
• Poor quality of stem teaching. 96%
• Conceptual difficulties. 80%

This was followed by some group discussions.

12:30am - Plenary Session - Are things that can be done better online

Matt Parker’s video. Really cool video about the football sign story. I learned some important things:

• Have a personal story attached to make the subject more interesting to others
• And have enthusiasm!

Francis Su’s advice

• Find ways to let students know that you care about them.

James Alvarez

• Learn students’ names.

Advice about research (could not catch the name of the speaker)

• REUF
• Adjoint

2:30pm - Interacting Teaching Demonstrations

• Interesting idea: restrict the speaking time to 10 mins in online lectures
• Alissa Crans: Get student to buy-in into learning by doing on the first day of class.

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Day 2

11:15 am - Time management

• Human brains don’t multi-task
• Brains process better than storing
• Take a whole day off every week
• Add things right away to your CV
• Leave a note for future you
• Maintain an urgent list and an important list

12:30 - Adriana Salerno - Overcoming anxiety in math classroom

We started with a breathing exercise (just taking 5 slow breaths with your eyes closed) for centering and it was really cool.

Anxiety:

• Uneasiness and worry
• Future possibilities
• Potentially disproportionate

Overcoming anxiety: identity the available resources.

Math mental health:

• the willingness to learn the math you need when you need it.

Need to hand-out praise more carefully! Should take care to not discourage other students. Instead of saying things like “this is perfect” say things like “I like your method here” or “I like this mistake”, etc. Encourage hard work even if the final answer is incorrect.

2:30 - Valerie Peterson - Orienting your class around inquiry

• Inquiry oriented vs inquiry based courses
• Only do an activity in class if you can point back to it three times later in the course.

3:34 - Ami Radunskaya - Modeling the world with DEs

Have students articulate a question based on their model. Journals for teaching modeling using DE

• CODEE journal
• SIMIODE journal

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Day 3

11:15 am - Erica Winterer, Philip Treisman - Day 1 rituals

• K-12 education is about socialization and acquisition of knowledge.
• University education is about individualization and acquisition of knowledge.

Q. How do we welcome students?

• Learn student’s names before the first day of class
• Make formal time for students to meet each other
• Set the expectation that you expect to see each of them during office hours
• Set the anticipation of struggle
• Share math genealogy with students!
• Introduce students to Academic Research

I love that they are taking videos asking students about what they think. Very scientific. I hope they are also taking surveys and collecting data.

12:30 pm - Paul Seeburger - CalcPlot3D

• Software: CalcPlot3D
• https://math.libretexts.org/Courses/Monroe_Community_College/MTH_212_Calculus_III

2:30 pm - Matt Boelkin - Active Learning with Active Calculus

• Spent some time going through an exercise from the active calculus book.

5:00 pm - Goal Setting & Planning

Set 3 goals for each of the following categories:

• Teaching
• Scholarship
• Service
• Personal

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Day 4

11:15 am - Maria Andersen - Best Practices for Remote Teaching in Math

• Remote classes:
  • synchronous, meets at scheduled times
  • similar to F2F teaching
• Online classes:
  • mostly asynchronous
• What if students don’t pay attention in remote classes?
  • They might not have been paying attention already.
• What about the in-class experience?
  • Vilma Mesa paper with pictures about classroom experience
• 1-9-90 Rule:
  • 1% creators
  • 9% commenters/sharers
  • 90% lurkers
• Checklist for virtual meeting rooms
  • make sure you know how video and audio mute work
  • clean up your desktop, browser tabs, bookmark folders
  • make sure you know how to share/stop sharing your browser or desktop
  • make sure you know where the chat window is - private chat vs public chat
  • try features like raising hand and yes/no answers from both the teacher’s side and the student’s side
• Virtual meeting room - logistics
  • Set meeting to auto-record
  • set students for “mute on entry”
  • set for waiting room (or not)
  • keep a paper class list by your computer to take notes
  • check the scene behind you
• Virtual meeting rooms - first session
  • sets the expectations for all your sessions
  • practice having students unmute to answer a question e.g. student scavenger hunt
• Full attention
  • Laptop tilt (in person)
  • Folded hands / hands over head (in remote)
• Cameras (on or off?)
  • emotional appeal
  • using cameras for cues
  • raising hands
  • thumbs up
  • full attention
  • lipreading
  • I can see if you’re bored
• Demonstration Procedure
  • full attention
  • demonstrate once
  • students try
  • demonstrate again
• Chat panel has pedagogical power
• 3-2-1 Go Method a.k.a. chat blasts
  • ask students to type answers but do not press enter
  • press enter when you say 3-2-1 go
  • trick: make a horizontal line in zoom chat by typing ---- (don’t forget the space at the end) to demarcate
• Sometimes old-fashioned tech is the best
  • have them carry along a small whiteboard to write on
  • this forces students to use both hands
  • better than using digital whiteboard tools
  • students are more inclined to try as it is a safe space
• Small group discussions: think-pair-share
  • give students time to jot down their ideas BEFORE you make breakout rooms. This prevents awkward silences in breakout rooms.
  • make them write on a google doc
  • another option - use a google doc ahead of time with links for different groups
• Writing on the board in remote classroom
  • digital whiteboards “Battle of the free digital whiteboarding tools”
    • tend to be glitchy
    • hard to write with a mouse
    • actual whitboard might actually be better
  • Peripheral table
    • requires significant hand-eye coordination
    • Wacom Intuos Grahpics Drawing Tablet
  • Document cameras
    • Easiest and possibly the best option
    • Can find small, foldable options that you can carry around with you
  • Tablets and tablet PCs
    • Use OneNote for software
• Students need a way to turn in work
  • many apps e.g. CamScanner
  • require them to convert to PDFs not JPGs
  • Students will need a low-stakes practice run
• Amaaaaazing website: https://teacher.desmos.com
  • Many teachers have activities on their personal websites so also try google searching “desmos activity …”.
• Discussion boards
  • Get help from an expert or watch pedagogy videos
• Proctoring strategies
  • Provide a formula sheet
  • Give open-notebook essay or free response exams and let students take them and submit them at the same time
  • have students sign and date handwritten academic dishonesty statement
    • I did not receive help on this exam from anyone other than my instructor. I did not help any other student with this exam
  • do not use googlable questions
    • instead of what is the vertex of the given function, ask, list ten properties of the given function
    • use word problems (possibly with real data)
    • instead of solve the problem: here’s a solution, explain why it’s wrong or find another solution
    • give students some agency where you can e.g. here are three problems, do them with three different methods

The glass is half-full because this is an opportunity to learn and try something new and for once your administration and/or colleagues won’t tell you no!

Upcoming conference by Maria Andersen

• Creating a Community of Learners
• May Webinar on Assessment in Remote Settings
• July Webinar on Formative Assessment
• https://www.ams.org/education/webinars

2:30 pm - Jumpstarting your scholarship program - NSF Grants

Lots of slides containing information about the various NSF grants.

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Day 5

11:15 am - Discussions about getting permanent positions

12:15 pm - Introduction to Teaching Groups

Eight different teaching groups

1. Tactivities
2. IBL
3. Writing (reflections, reading, essays)
4. Mastery based grading
5. Group work
6. One minute innovations (exit interviews, think pair share, exit tickets, one minute papers)
7. Voting/polling
8. Projects

2:30pm - Alissa Crans - Jumpstarting your scholarship program

• Other sources of funding
  • NSA : young investigator grants
  • AMS/Simons foundation travel and collaboration grants (easy to apply for and easy to use, no red tape)
  • Mathematical Association of America (TENSOR, etc.)
  • Association for Women in Mathematics (travel, collaboration)
  • grants.gov
  • Fulbright
  • Workshop/Conference grants
  • CV stalk - see where others get their grants from
• How do you find new ideas for problems/projects, especially ones in different from our thesis?
  • Dissertation, postdoctoral work
  • Journal articles
  • Survey/expository papers
  • attending talk sessions
  • reviewing a submission
  • colleagues
  • students
• How do you find time to do research when:
  • we have a high teaching load
  • when we’re the only person in the department in your area
    • set a day off for doing research
    • assign homework to yourself for each week
    • post your calendar for everyone to see (this sets a good example)
• What’s a good venues for publishing work for undergrads
  • undergrad journal
    • MAA and SIAM have undergrad journals
    • several other examples: involve, pentagon, pme journal, pump journal of undergrad research, rose-hulman undergrad math journal
• Collaborators
  • AMS author ownership statement
  • AMS statement about coauthors
  • Where to find?
    • Locally: department, college, university
    • Regionally: go to MAA/AMS sections, etc.
    • Nationally: conferences
    • REUF (research experience for undergraduate faculty) at ICERM/AIM

We also discussed things like to give good talks, how to prioritize life over work, etc.