MATH 599: Mathematics Teaching Techniques
When: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 12:00 noon–1:00 pm
Where: MATX 1102 (Mathematics Annex)
Textbook: Any reading materials we use can be obtained from the instructor.
Instructor: Prof. Greg Martin
Office: MATH 212 (Mathematics Building)
Email address: gerg@math.ubc.ca
Phone number: (604) 822-4371
Office hours: By appointment, typically from 1-3 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
Here is the schedule for the second, 40-minute, tag-team presentations:
- Friday, October 22
- Daniel and Omer: Partial fractions
- Monday, October 25
- Adam and Hui: Newton's Method
- Wednesday, October 27
- Alberto and Reza: Taylor polynomials
- Friday, October 29
- Colleen and Meijiao: One-variable optimization problems
- Monday, November 1
- Andreas and Oleksander: Higher derivatives and concavity
- Wednesday, November 3
- Sarah: Integration using substitution
- Friday, November 5
- Li and Roger: Implicit differentiation
- Monday, November 8
- Jeff and Vishaal: Basic differentiation rules
- Wednesday, November 10
- Warren and Yunfeng: Continuity
- Friday, November 12
- Amy and Mike: The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus
- Monday, November 15
- José and Sandra: Derivatives of exponential and logarithmic functions
- Wednesday, November 17
- George and Na: Finding local maxima and minima
As promised, every student will be given an official week off from attending presentations, although of course you are welcome to come if you want. Please notify me if you must miss a class on a date other than what is listed below for you.
- Students who can miss the week of October 25-29:
- Amy, George, Jeff, Mike, Na, Vishaal, and Warren
- Students who can miss the week of November 1-5:
- Adam, Alberto, Colleen, Hui, José, Meijiao, Reza, and Sandra
- Students who can miss the week of November 8-12:
- Andreas, Daniel, Li, Oleksander, Omer, Roger, and Sarah
- Special case whom I have contacted personally:
- Yunfeng
Here is the schedule for the first, 15-minute presentations:
- Wednesday, September 15
- Amy: The Quotient Rule
- George: L'Hôpital's Rule
- Friday, September 17
- Roger: Critical points
- Alberto: Improper integrals
- Monday, September 20
- Sandra: Trigonometric functions in calculus
- Meijiao: The derivative as a function
- Wednesday, September 22
- Adam: The area between curves
- Daniel: The Chain Rule
- Friday, September 24
- Hui: Compound interest
- Monday, September 27
- Alex: The first derivative test for local extrema
- José: The number e
- Wednesday, September 29
- Li: Partial derivatives
- Jeff: Integrating using substitution
- Friday, October 1
- Mike: Continuity
- Monday, October 4
- Andreas: Logarithms
- Na: Partial derivatives
- Wednesday, October 6
- Colleen: Calculating derivatives from the definition
- Omer: One-variable optimization problems
- Friday, October 8
- Warren: Integration by parts
- Wednesday, October 13
- Yunfeng: Limits of functions
- Reza: The Second Derivative Test for local extrema
- Friday, October 15
- Vishaal: Separable differential equations
Course description: The purpose of this course is to provide students with
training to help them become more effective teachers, and also to give the
mathematics department a means for evaluating the suitability of students
to teach undergraduate courses in mathematics. Virtually everybody is capable
of becoming a competent and skillful instructor, but virtually nobody would
do well if made to teach a course without preparation or forethought about
effective teaching practices. Structuring a course, preparing lectures, delivering
information, responding to questions, assigning homework, dealing with problem
students, and so on are all areas where a little consideration of certain
guidelines can vastly improve a teacher's performance. Much of what
comprises excellent teaching is quite different from individual to individual;
most of what comprises bad teaching, on the other hand, is universal yet
easily avoided with some experience.
Evaluation: The course is graded on a pass/fail basis. Passing the course is based on the following criteria:
- Attendance
- Participation in discussions
- Completion of teaching presentations
- Completion of any written assignments
Students will give two presentations during the semester, one of length 15-20 minutes and one of length 40-50 minutes. The first, short presentation will be to critique the students' mechanics and classroom presence, while the long presentations will be to critique their organization of material into a beneficial lecture. Students will teach typical topics from first-year calculus as if the audience were actually a first-year calculus class, after which they will receive feedback from the rest of the class and the instructor.
It might be the case that a very small number of written assignments might be given in the course, for example, writing notes for a one-hour calculus lecture or an outlnie for a one-semester course. Clearly, the focus of the course will be not on the final grade but rather on thinking about issues of teaching and course management and giving and receiving constructive feedback on our skills in the classroom.