I'm happy to announce the new AIBL Video Series page. This video series focuses on topics that we cover at IBL Workshops. It's a virtual, self-paced, virtual IBL workshop (a la Khan Academy) for those who cannot attend a workshop (yet). Virtual workshops do not replace intensive summer workshops, but we also recognize that waiting until next summer is waiting too long for some. Scheduling or lack of traveling funding may be issues that prevents a math instructor from attending a summer workshop, and here at AIBL we believe that all students should have access to the latest student-centered, active teaching methods. Cost or logistics should not be a barrier to progress, and we are doing what we can to make things a bit better.
To help bridge the gap, I've created an initial series of videos intended for college math instructors. While K-12 teachers are welcome to use the videos and join the conversation, our focus is in shifting the teaching culture at the college level.
One way to look at this video series is as an expanded IBL Workshop Zero. It'll get you going, if you can put in the time or get you more ready just before a summer workshop. We'll be adding more videos, and please feel free to send us topics you want to learn more about and we'll try and make videos on topics that the community wants.
Lastly, while we don't have the resources now for a mentoring program, we do have an active community on our AIBL Facebook Group. If you have a question, post it there! We are also looking into other venues to host and support online communities for math instructors to help one another. More on that is forthcoming.
Links
http://www.inquirybasedlearning.org/ibl-video/ AIBL Video Series Page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/aibl1/ AIBL Facebook Group
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Friday, August 31, 2018
Beginning of the Academic Year and the Shokunin Spirit
The beginning of fall is a time when I like to reflect on what my goals are as a teacher. It's time to look at work what worked, what needs improvement, and see if new ideas from the profession can be implemented. The way I taught 10 or 15 years ago is very different than what I do today, because of this continuous effort to move forward.
One of my colleagues who teaches college math was once asked, "Why fix what isn't broken?" in the context of why work on improving classes we have been teaching for many years. Course evaluations are solid, and the instructor is well regarded. The question was meant in the sense of you're doing a good job, so why bother with putting in more effort.
The notion that captures an effective response to this question is the shokunin spirit or the viewpoint of an artisan or craftsman with a deeper sense of social obligation. (Shokunin spirit was highlighted in the movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.) In this view, it's not about getting there or making it to some achievement level, but to continually improve, strive for innovation, and give a 100% effort for yourself and the welfare of society. It's like the notion of practice makes perfect combined with running through the finish line. Why not work your hardest? Why let up, before the race is over? Why would you want to be the person who just coasts in?
There is a satisfaction of having tried your best and having found ways to innovate and improve, even if it's small steps that others won't notice. The notion of hard work is sometimes viewed with a negative connotation in the U.S., where hard work is associated with slog, suffering, dreadful repetition. But that's where the point of view of the artisan comes in to lift things up. Artisans are passionate about their work, and hone, refine, and innovate as part of the process of doing what they do, because their process and work is intrinsically interesting and rewarding to them.
Teaching can be practiced with this same spirit. Yes, we could get away with passing out dittos from the 80s and hitting the play button. Or repeating our lines from the lectures notes we wrote a few years after we got out of grad school. An alternative is to look honestly at issues, read articles from Math Ed research, and collaborate with other professionals. We can learn about the documented issues and go to work on trying to make progress on some of them. Conceptual understanding, problem solving, math anxiety, DFW rates, equity and inclusion are not solved problems in college math, the last time I checked. There's a ton of work to be done. We got some fixin' to do!
"Why fix what isn't broken?" is not the question we should be asking. We should be asking, "What are we going to work on next?" As I head into my 19th year of college math teaching, my personal goal is to stay fresh, look for opportunities to make improvements to increase student success, and enjoy the daily process of becoming a better teacher.
Best wishes for a successful academic year, and I hope you also find a way to capture and find your own shokunin spirit!
One of my colleagues who teaches college math was once asked, "Why fix what isn't broken?" in the context of why work on improving classes we have been teaching for many years. Course evaluations are solid, and the instructor is well regarded. The question was meant in the sense of you're doing a good job, so why bother with putting in more effort.
The notion that captures an effective response to this question is the shokunin spirit or the viewpoint of an artisan or craftsman with a deeper sense of social obligation. (Shokunin spirit was highlighted in the movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.) In this view, it's not about getting there or making it to some achievement level, but to continually improve, strive for innovation, and give a 100% effort for yourself and the welfare of society. It's like the notion of practice makes perfect combined with running through the finish line. Why not work your hardest? Why let up, before the race is over? Why would you want to be the person who just coasts in?
There is a satisfaction of having tried your best and having found ways to innovate and improve, even if it's small steps that others won't notice. The notion of hard work is sometimes viewed with a negative connotation in the U.S., where hard work is associated with slog, suffering, dreadful repetition. But that's where the point of view of the artisan comes in to lift things up. Artisans are passionate about their work, and hone, refine, and innovate as part of the process of doing what they do, because their process and work is intrinsically interesting and rewarding to them.
Teaching can be practiced with this same spirit. Yes, we could get away with passing out dittos from the 80s and hitting the play button. Or repeating our lines from the lectures notes we wrote a few years after we got out of grad school. An alternative is to look honestly at issues, read articles from Math Ed research, and collaborate with other professionals. We can learn about the documented issues and go to work on trying to make progress on some of them. Conceptual understanding, problem solving, math anxiety, DFW rates, equity and inclusion are not solved problems in college math, the last time I checked. There's a ton of work to be done. We got some fixin' to do!
"Why fix what isn't broken?" is not the question we should be asking. We should be asking, "What are we going to work on next?" As I head into my 19th year of college math teaching, my personal goal is to stay fresh, look for opportunities to make improvements to increase student success, and enjoy the daily process of becoming a better teacher.
Best wishes for a successful academic year, and I hope you also find a way to capture and find your own shokunin spirit!
Friday, July 27, 2018
Student Voices Video: Episode 11
Here's Charlotte. She's a first year student at Cal Poly, majoring in Environmental Earth and Soil Sciences. Charlotte discusses how working on problems and learning other students' perspectives helped her own learning and her classmates' learning. Fruitful engagement and collaboration are two core components of IBL!
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
France's Soccer Program, Professional Development in Math Teaching
The World Cup 2018 is going on as I write this, and I happened to come across this Vox Video that explains why France has far more players in the World Cup than any other. "France was one of the first European countries to create an academy system for scouting, recruiting, and training talented young soccer players; many grew up in immigrant neighborhoods where their foreign-born parents had settled."
How did they get to having the most soccers players at the top level? They have a system that invests in their people.
System-level success is intentional work. You could try to rely on luck, “osmosis,” or search for a magic bullet, like the special textbook or school choice that will mythically unlock the learning potential in our students. Or wait for the next generation of talented people to move us forward. Of course good materials and dedicated professionals are needed. I’m not discounting those things. We need those things. But thinking in terms of only books or simple, one-dimensional ideas isn’t a strategy should bet on. It's too passive, and ignores the power we have to act and work together now to harness our ingenuity and passion. Further, if it was that easy, it would have been done already generations ago.
I prefer an intentional, systems approach. Teaching is a human system, and improving education means thinking carefully about solutions on a system level. This includes addressing change as a community building effort. People do the teaching. People, primarily students, do the learning. People write the assessments, publish the textbooks, set the schedules, and so on. Education a human endeavor, and teaching (math) is a cultural activity.
To get at the core things that we need to do to make progress, we shouldn’t think only in mechanistic terms like schedules and books. Education is not a factory, and children are not machines. Yes, math teachers are humans :) Like France’s approach to developing soccer players, we’re developing an approach to professional development to establish a system for math instructors to learn about IBL methods and join a community for continuing, long-term development. We're supporting math instructors. We’re investing in people, and hence the community of practitioners who are key players in system. (We've highlighted our real-world successes so far in this post HERE).
Professional development, therefore, is a vital strategy. It’s how knowledge, skills, and practices of the broader profession can be efficiently shared with and learned by individuals. IBL Workshops are in this sense a framework or structure that can collect or house the community knowledge, and then provide coherent programs for new IBLers to learn quickly the skills and practices of effective IBL teaching.
Professional development is also an opportunity to build new leadership. Developing facilitators is developing community leaders, and this then grows the capacity for the profession to effectively implement improvements to education. Professional development is to faculty as classes are to students. (See our team of IBL workshop facilitators and IBL community leaders!) This year I am attending exactly zero workshops, so others can learn to do this and own it. In fact, this is one of the main goals of our current project (NSF-PRODUCT).
Some caveats... Professional development does not solve all problems in education, but it's how we get at solving many of those problems. The point I'm making here is that investment in professional development is necessary. People solve problems, and professional development programs bring people together to share, grow, and find new solutions.
Designing a professional development system with intent is our mantra. Not only are we focused on running workshops to disseminate IBL methods, we also have an eye on community building and scalability of our workshop model.
More Links:
1. A Vision for the Future of Active Learning: Professional Development Centers
2. 2018 IBL Workshop General Info
3. Vox Video "Why France Produces the Most World Cup Players"
How did they get to having the most soccers players at the top level? They have a system that invests in their people.
System-level success is intentional work. You could try to rely on luck, “osmosis,” or search for a magic bullet, like the special textbook or school choice that will mythically unlock the learning potential in our students. Or wait for the next generation of talented people to move us forward. Of course good materials and dedicated professionals are needed. I’m not discounting those things. We need those things. But thinking in terms of only books or simple, one-dimensional ideas isn’t a strategy should bet on. It's too passive, and ignores the power we have to act and work together now to harness our ingenuity and passion. Further, if it was that easy, it would have been done already generations ago.
I prefer an intentional, systems approach. Teaching is a human system, and improving education means thinking carefully about solutions on a system level. This includes addressing change as a community building effort. People do the teaching. People, primarily students, do the learning. People write the assessments, publish the textbooks, set the schedules, and so on. Education a human endeavor, and teaching (math) is a cultural activity.
To get at the core things that we need to do to make progress, we shouldn’t think only in mechanistic terms like schedules and books. Education is not a factory, and children are not machines. Yes, math teachers are humans :) Like France’s approach to developing soccer players, we’re developing an approach to professional development to establish a system for math instructors to learn about IBL methods and join a community for continuing, long-term development. We're supporting math instructors. We’re investing in people, and hence the community of practitioners who are key players in system. (We've highlighted our real-world successes so far in this post HERE).
Professional development, therefore, is a vital strategy. It’s how knowledge, skills, and practices of the broader profession can be efficiently shared with and learned by individuals. IBL Workshops are in this sense a framework or structure that can collect or house the community knowledge, and then provide coherent programs for new IBLers to learn quickly the skills and practices of effective IBL teaching.
Professional development is also an opportunity to build new leadership. Developing facilitators is developing community leaders, and this then grows the capacity for the profession to effectively implement improvements to education. Professional development is to faculty as classes are to students. (See our team of IBL workshop facilitators and IBL community leaders!) This year I am attending exactly zero workshops, so others can learn to do this and own it. In fact, this is one of the main goals of our current project (NSF-PRODUCT).
Some caveats... Professional development does not solve all problems in education, but it's how we get at solving many of those problems. The point I'm making here is that investment in professional development is necessary. People solve problems, and professional development programs bring people together to share, grow, and find new solutions.
Designing a professional development system with intent is our mantra. Not only are we focused on running workshops to disseminate IBL methods, we also have an eye on community building and scalability of our workshop model.
More Links:
1. A Vision for the Future of Active Learning: Professional Development Centers
2. 2018 IBL Workshop General Info
3. Vox Video "Why France Produces the Most World Cup Players"
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
2018 IBL Workshops in Chicago and Washington DC
This is a short blog post on the IBL Workshops going on right now or just ended. Last week, the Chicago team hosted an IBL Workshop at DePaul University! This week the DC team is running a workshop at the MAA Carriage House at MAA HQ. More info about our workshops is available at www.inquirybasedlearning.org
It's inspiring that about 100 college math instructors are meeting this summer to get better at teaching!
Enjoy a mix of images of faculty and staff working together to improve college math education.
It's inspiring that about 100 college math instructors are meeting this summer to get better at teaching!
Enjoy a mix of images of faculty and staff working together to improve college math education.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Student Voices Video: Episode 10
The student voices series of videos is focused on telling stories from student perspectives. In this episode, Shannon Sheehan is the subject. Shannon is an undergraduate at Cal Poly, majoring in Liberal Studies (Elementary Ed), who was in Professor Champney's IBL Calculus 1 class in winter quarter 2018. She discusses how IBL helped her learn math better, contributed to her success in the course, and perhaps most importantly she will use IBL in her own teaching. Shannon will be an IBLer, not just in math, but in all subjects. See this for yourself!
For more student voices, please visit the Student Voices Playlist.
For more student voices, please visit the Student Voices Playlist.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Interview: Professor Stephanie Salomone, University of Portland
Stephanie Anne Salomone, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair, Mathematics Department
University of Portland
Tell us about your institution and what the teaching environment is like, what courses you typically teach.
I teach at the University of Portland, a comprehensive Catholic university in Portland, OR. I started here in 2005, my newly-minted PhD from UCLA in hand. At the time, there were 9 full time mathematics faculty, and four of us were brand new to the department and new to the profession. We were a traditional department, as far as teaching goes.
Things are substantially different now. We have grown to fourteen full-time faculty, with several colleagues who teach using active-learning strategies rather than lecture. We have several practitioners of IBL in classes such as real analysis, modern algebra, discrete structures, topology, modern geometry and number theory. We have people inserting IBL modules into calculus and other lower-division classes, and several faculty have flipped their classrooms.
We are an institution that values teaching and learning, and reflective practice fits within the Mission. Our department is, as well, deeply committed to teaching, and our departmental mission.
As a department, we describe our purpose, vision, and mission in the following way:
Our purpose is to foster belonging and participation in our intellectual community, wherein we model the vitality of teaching and learning by addressing the whole person.
Our vision is to sustain a life-long, collaborative community of mathematical scholars, teachers, and learners, connected globally and locally, in order to empower one another as we engage and transform our world.
Our mission is to evoke curiosity about new ways of thinking, and connect to, collaborate with, and challenge one another as we invite students to contribute to our mathematics community. Through inquiry, creativity, and vital, relevant conversation, we instill habits of abstract and applied mathematical thinking and examine the impact of mathematics on our world.
How how long have you been teaching via IBL and how did you get started?
I started teaching IBL in 2006, the first time I taught Real Analysis. I enrolled in a summer institute in Costa Mesa, and learned from Stan Yoshinobu and Ed Parker. I’ve never taught Real Analysis any other way, and in fact, no matter who has taught the class since 2006 has revised and used the notes that I got from Stan. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to a more traditionally-taught class. Since 2006, I’ve taught IBL versions of topology (using Ed’s notes) and modern geometry (using David Clark’s book), and I added sections to Dana Ernst’s Discrete Math notes so that I could adopt it for our Introduction to Proof course. Several of my colleagues have also taught using IBL in other courses, and we have great support in the department for faculty who want to try new pedagogical techniques.
What are some of the benefits of IBL classes to your students?
I taught Discrete Structures in a traditional lecture format for many years, and always felt disappointed at the end. Students really were not as engaged as I wanted them to be, and finally, a little fed up with my inability to really capture their attention, I realized that I was trying to teach them to write proofs and follow logical arguments by showing them how rather than just having them try, fail, regroup, and try again. The answer was actually obvious to me, and I spent the summer of 2016 writing notes and adopting Dana Ernst’s notes for my classes. I’ve been using them ever since. Yes, it’s true that this change means that I “cover” less material in the class, and I don’t get to “cover” equivalence relations any more. What I found was that even if I went over them in class, students didn’t get them enough to use them in future classes anyway. I made a decision to sacrifice coverage for deep understanding and skill, and I believe it was the right choice. My students can write proofs. They can interpret logical arguments. They can find flaws and offer gentle and constructive criticism to peers. They can talk intelligently about the nuances of mathematical communication. And they can do these things well, far better than most students in my class prior to making this pedagogical switch.
In fact, that is true in all of the IBL classes I’ve taught. If I look at the content we cover, it is definitely less in quantity than what I could do in a traditional course. However, the quality of learning is so much higher, and beyond that, students learn to support one another. They learn to take risks and recover from mistakes. They learn to communicate well orally and in writing. They learn to pace their work around everything else that is going on. They learn to listen, to think on their feet, to work in teams. These are invaluable skills.
Tell us about your current grant-funded projects.
I am currently running two NSF-funded projects.
I am the PI of the NSF Noyce Scholars and Interns program at UP. We are finishing up our 5th year, and are heading into an extension year to spend the remainder of our funds. We have been offering scholarships and internships to undergraduate STEM majors and to career-changing STEM professionals who want to become teachers in high-needs schools. It has been interesting to partner with faculty from other disciplines, including biology, engineering, and education, as we attempt to address a national need for highly-trained K-12 STEM teachers. In addition to our original Noyce project, I’ve submitted a proposal as part of the Western Regional Noyce Alliance to fund a series of conferences and meetings for in-service, pre-service, and post-secondary educators involved in Noyce programs. I am working with several faculty members from a variety of universities in the Western region of the United States.
I am also the PI of the NSF IUSE program at UP, which is a professional development program for UP STEM faculty. We’re in the pilot phase of this program, called REFLECT. The goal of the proposed project, Redesigning Education For Learning through Evidence and Collaborative Teaching (REFLECT), is to increase significantly the use of highly effective, evidence-based STEM teaching methods at the University of Portland using peer observation. The proposal team from science, engineering, mathematics, and education is testing an innovative method of teacher change based on faculty peer observation that leads to reflective teaching. The REFLECT framework is organized to support adopters by providing an alternative form of assessing teaching through peer evaluation and reflection, going beyond student evaluations. The REFLECT project will develop and facilitate training workshops to expose faculty to highly effective evidence-based teaching methods and assist faculty in implementing them. The on-going professional development (PD) will be designed to foster support within a cohort of faculty using evidence-based methods. The workshop and PD will also provide training on faculty peer observation and the process of reflective teaching. Over time, this peer observation and reflection process will provide a support network that helps STEM faculty to continue to implement evidence-based teaching methods in the future, ensuring sustainability of the REFLECT program. The project structure aligns with the incentive system for teaching-focused universities, where teaching performance is highly valued and may not be well characterized in student evaluations. Our first cohort of eleven will participate in a four-day institute this May on evidence-based practices, including IBL. We’ll have a second cohort next summer, and then at the end of the three-year grant, we will host an evidence-based practices symposium for the campus and community.
Associate Professor and Chair, Mathematics Department
University of Portland
Tell us about your institution and what the teaching environment is like, what courses you typically teach.
I teach at the University of Portland, a comprehensive Catholic university in Portland, OR. I started here in 2005, my newly-minted PhD from UCLA in hand. At the time, there were 9 full time mathematics faculty, and four of us were brand new to the department and new to the profession. We were a traditional department, as far as teaching goes.
Things are substantially different now. We have grown to fourteen full-time faculty, with several colleagues who teach using active-learning strategies rather than lecture. We have several practitioners of IBL in classes such as real analysis, modern algebra, discrete structures, topology, modern geometry and number theory. We have people inserting IBL modules into calculus and other lower-division classes, and several faculty have flipped their classrooms.
We are an institution that values teaching and learning, and reflective practice fits within the Mission. Our department is, as well, deeply committed to teaching, and our departmental mission.
As a department, we describe our purpose, vision, and mission in the following way:
Our purpose is to foster belonging and participation in our intellectual community, wherein we model the vitality of teaching and learning by addressing the whole person.
Our vision is to sustain a life-long, collaborative community of mathematical scholars, teachers, and learners, connected globally and locally, in order to empower one another as we engage and transform our world.
Our mission is to evoke curiosity about new ways of thinking, and connect to, collaborate with, and challenge one another as we invite students to contribute to our mathematics community. Through inquiry, creativity, and vital, relevant conversation, we instill habits of abstract and applied mathematical thinking and examine the impact of mathematics on our world.
How how long have you been teaching via IBL and how did you get started?
I started teaching IBL in 2006, the first time I taught Real Analysis. I enrolled in a summer institute in Costa Mesa, and learned from Stan Yoshinobu and Ed Parker. I’ve never taught Real Analysis any other way, and in fact, no matter who has taught the class since 2006 has revised and used the notes that I got from Stan. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to a more traditionally-taught class. Since 2006, I’ve taught IBL versions of topology (using Ed’s notes) and modern geometry (using David Clark’s book), and I added sections to Dana Ernst’s Discrete Math notes so that I could adopt it for our Introduction to Proof course. Several of my colleagues have also taught using IBL in other courses, and we have great support in the department for faculty who want to try new pedagogical techniques.
What are some of the benefits of IBL classes to your students?
I taught Discrete Structures in a traditional lecture format for many years, and always felt disappointed at the end. Students really were not as engaged as I wanted them to be, and finally, a little fed up with my inability to really capture their attention, I realized that I was trying to teach them to write proofs and follow logical arguments by showing them how rather than just having them try, fail, regroup, and try again. The answer was actually obvious to me, and I spent the summer of 2016 writing notes and adopting Dana Ernst’s notes for my classes. I’ve been using them ever since. Yes, it’s true that this change means that I “cover” less material in the class, and I don’t get to “cover” equivalence relations any more. What I found was that even if I went over them in class, students didn’t get them enough to use them in future classes anyway. I made a decision to sacrifice coverage for deep understanding and skill, and I believe it was the right choice. My students can write proofs. They can interpret logical arguments. They can find flaws and offer gentle and constructive criticism to peers. They can talk intelligently about the nuances of mathematical communication. And they can do these things well, far better than most students in my class prior to making this pedagogical switch.
In fact, that is true in all of the IBL classes I’ve taught. If I look at the content we cover, it is definitely less in quantity than what I could do in a traditional course. However, the quality of learning is so much higher, and beyond that, students learn to support one another. They learn to take risks and recover from mistakes. They learn to communicate well orally and in writing. They learn to pace their work around everything else that is going on. They learn to listen, to think on their feet, to work in teams. These are invaluable skills.
Tell us about your current grant-funded projects.
I am currently running two NSF-funded projects.
I am the PI of the NSF Noyce Scholars and Interns program at UP. We are finishing up our 5th year, and are heading into an extension year to spend the remainder of our funds. We have been offering scholarships and internships to undergraduate STEM majors and to career-changing STEM professionals who want to become teachers in high-needs schools. It has been interesting to partner with faculty from other disciplines, including biology, engineering, and education, as we attempt to address a national need for highly-trained K-12 STEM teachers. In addition to our original Noyce project, I’ve submitted a proposal as part of the Western Regional Noyce Alliance to fund a series of conferences and meetings for in-service, pre-service, and post-secondary educators involved in Noyce programs. I am working with several faculty members from a variety of universities in the Western region of the United States.
I am also the PI of the NSF IUSE program at UP, which is a professional development program for UP STEM faculty. We’re in the pilot phase of this program, called REFLECT. The goal of the proposed project, Redesigning Education For Learning through Evidence and Collaborative Teaching (REFLECT), is to increase significantly the use of highly effective, evidence-based STEM teaching methods at the University of Portland using peer observation. The proposal team from science, engineering, mathematics, and education is testing an innovative method of teacher change based on faculty peer observation that leads to reflective teaching. The REFLECT framework is organized to support adopters by providing an alternative form of assessing teaching through peer evaluation and reflection, going beyond student evaluations. The REFLECT project will develop and facilitate training workshops to expose faculty to highly effective evidence-based teaching methods and assist faculty in implementing them. The on-going professional development (PD) will be designed to foster support within a cohort of faculty using evidence-based methods. The workshop and PD will also provide training on faculty peer observation and the process of reflective teaching. Over time, this peer observation and reflection process will provide a support network that helps STEM faculty to continue to implement evidence-based teaching methods in the future, ensuring sustainability of the REFLECT program. The project structure aligns with the incentive system for teaching-focused universities, where teaching performance is highly valued and may not be well characterized in student evaluations. Our first cohort of eleven will participate in a four-day institute this May on evidence-based practices, including IBL. We’ll have a second cohort next summer, and then at the end of the three-year grant, we will host an evidence-based practices symposium for the campus and community.
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