Mathematics

Department of Mathematics

People

CWSEI Deptartment Director: Costanza Piccolo (2010-19), Stephanie van Willigenburg (2009-10), Richard Froese (2008-09)

STLFs: Alain Prat (Dec ’15-Dec ’18), Sandra Merchant (March ’10-Feb ’16), Kseniya Garaschuk (Sep ’14-July ’16), Wes Maciejewski (Sep ’13-Dec ’14), Joseph Lo (Jun ’10-Dec ’13), Warren Code (Jan ’10-Dec ’12), Katya Yurasovskaya (July ‘11-Aug ‘12), Paul Ottaway (Sept-Dec ’09)

Faculty: E. Cytrynbaum, L. Keshet, Y-H Kim, M. MacLean, B. Marcus, G. Martin, C. Piccolo, A. Rechnitzer, R. Anstee, J. Bryan, A. Chau, M. Doebeli, R. Froese, J. Gordon, R. Gupta, S. Gustafson, B. Homsy, F-S. Leung, P. Loewen, A. Peirce, S. Ramdorai, Z. Reichstein, D. Schoetzau, G. Slade, S. van Willigenburg, M. Ward, B. Wetton, O. Yilmaz

TAs and Postdocs: P. Bell, M. Berube, J. Gou, A. Herrera, R. Hiller, V. Kapoor, I. Karimfazli, D. Karslidis, C. Lee, R. Liang A. Lindsay, T. Milnor, A. Nguyen, M. Raggi, L. Robson, S. Rose, R. Schwarz, A. Raghoonundun (with Skylight support), G. de Oliveira, W. Thompson, M. Willoughby A. Zaman

Activity

Activity summary report for the Mathematics CWSEI group (course and curriculum projects, research) - PDF download

The Mathematics Department CWSEI website has additional detail and activity records from the various projects.

Poster from CWSEI End-of-Year 2012: The Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative in Mathematics - PDF download

Course Materials

Overview

Starting in 2008, the UBC Mathematics Department is participating in the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) to improve undergraduate science education. In 2010 the Math-CWSEI program underwent a major expansion thanks to a generous donation by Prof. David Cheriton, UBC alumnus, now Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University.

An important first step for the Math CWSEI in all the courses involved in the project was to write down a set of learning goals. Learning goals (also called "learning outcomes" or "learning objectives") make explicit what the students are expected to be able to do at each stage of the course. They are useful to instructors in preparing tests, and assessing the success of a course. In lower level courses, where the students and instructors may start out thinking about the material in radically different ways, learning goals can help to focus the instruction at the appropriate level. They provide a communication channel for successive instructors in a given course, so that effort in improving pedagogy is transmitted. Made available to students, they help students assess their understanding and to prepare for exams.

An important last step for all the projects in the Math CWSEI is the archiving of materials in the SEI Course Materials Archive. This archive contains material developed by departments that participated in the CWSEI at UBC and the SEI at CU Boulder, and is intended to be an open resource for educators.