Tag Archives: Teaching

What to Do When a Group Gets Stuck Working on a Task

In my previous post, I discussed how to adapt a problem that you have found in order to make the problem groupworthy. One of the important things to consider when adapting real-world problems is to avoid giving step-by-step instructions and formulas … Continue reading

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SMART

As math graduate students, we often get teaching assignments from our departments, some of us tutor independently for financial reasons, and some volunteer to teach at local schools or libraries. Teaching is an inseparable part of our job/life. But that is where … Continue reading

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Using Groupworthy Tasks to Increase Student Engagement

There has been an ongoing call in mathematics education for students to be engaging in problem solving and collaborative groupwork.  Although, many instructors find that when they put students in groups, some students seem disengaged and we may start to … Continue reading

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Daily Quizzes: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—Part 1

This past semester, I decided to do something crazy—I gave my students a quiz (nearly) every day of class. You can imagine that my students weren’t nearly as excited as I was about this plan. In case you’re looking for … Continue reading

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Eigenightmares, Dancing Stick Figures, and the Advantages of a Spiral Approach to Pedagogy

For my next installment on innovative teaching techniques, I’d like to dredge another demon that haunted my nights long ago—EIGENVECTORS!  Normally, eigenvectors are introduced in the waning days of a first-year linear algebra course, when students’ minds are already saturated … Continue reading

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