Math 5990

Teaching College Mathematics

Instructor: John Albert

Office: PHSC 1004

Office hours: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays 11:00 am to 12:00 pm (or by appointment)

Phone: 325-3782

E-mail: jalbert@ou.edu

The course is currently scheduled to meet at 1:30 on Fridays in Physical Sciences 117.
Here is the syllabus for the course.

Assignment 1: (due in the D2L dropbox for this course, folder "Assignment 1", by 9 am on Friday, Aug. 22) (Instructions on how to submit a file to a folder in the D2L dropbox are at https://ouit.zendesk.com/entries/20175842-dropbox-submit-a-file. If for some reason the process isn't working for you, you can e-mail the homework to me instead.)
- Write a paragraph on how your first day of class went this semester.
- Read sections 1.0 to 1.5 in Krantz' book and write a paragraph on your reaction to this reading.
Assignment 2: (due in the D2L dropbox for this course, folder "Assignment 2", by 9 am on Friday, Aug. 29):
Visit the class of another TA or professor (not one of the TAs in this seminar) and write a paragraph on your impressions. Try to find a class similar in level to the one you're teaching. You do not have to stay for the whole class; 15 minutes or so should be enough.
Assignment 3: Read the following case study before coming to class on Friday Sept. 12: "Pairing Up".
Assignment 4: Read sections 1.11 and 4.6 in Krantz' book before coming to class.

Assignment 5 is to give (and be the audience for) 7-minute mini teaching sessions in class. Here's the schedule so far:

On Sept. 19 we were discussing the issue of how to respond to a student who asks "What is this good for?" In particular we mentioned the question of why students should learn to factor polynomials. Here is an article that articulates some reasons pretty clearly, including many that were brought up in our discussion: Why Do I Have to Take Algebra?, by Elizabeth Stapel.
Some interesting blog entries on the topic of how students learn are here. For example, one entry discusses "optimism bias" --- our tendency to do things like tell ourselves we can still pull out an A in a course, when it's halfway through the semester and we've failed two tests so far.
There are links to some interesting articles about undergraduate math education on a previous semester's Teaching College Math webpage.
You can see notices of upcoming events in the O.U. Research on Undergraduate Math Education program on this webpage.