Preferences on the Summer 2012 and FW 2012-13 course offerings

In keeping with the tradition of offering Math 5020 and Math 5400 (the two required courses for this program) alternate years we will offer History of Mathematics for Teachers (MATH 5400) during the Summer 2012 or FW 2012-13. One possibility that has arisen is that it should be offered in Summer 2012 (roughly 12 weeks in May through July, possibly Tuesday/Thursday but finer details such as dates are quite tentative at this point).

I don't want to take this option if this should conflict with people who have already taken Math 5400 and will leave them unable to finish until the end of 2013. If this should apply to you, would you please contact me and let me know what courses you have taken and your plans for finishing the program and I will try to take these into account when we decide what will be offered in the 2012-13 academic year.

FW 2011-12 schedule

We had to switch the days that Fundamentals and Algebra would be offered because of a conflict that I had. Sorry for those of you who signed up for the courses with the days switched.

The actual schedule is now.
Math 5420 6.0 : Algebra for Teachers
Ada Chan
Mondays 6-9pm

Math 5020 6.0 : Fundamentals in Mathematics for Teachers
Mike Zabrocki
Thursdays 6-9pm

In addition, I will be out of town the first two weeks of September and so the Fundamentals course may face a delayed start that we will have to make up. A notice will be sent out to registered students as we get closer to the start day.

A talk by John Mighton

I saw this talk by John Mighton a few months back and ended up showing it to my class. So many things that he said about mathematics and mathematics education resonated with my experiences and I thought it was worth sharing.

The Ubiquitous Bell Curve - a presentation recorded at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo.

Testing and learning

As long as I was posting the note on upcoming classes I thought I would report on some research that I found interesting recently. A report in the Journal of Science by researchers at Purdue University finds that testing helps people learn better than a number of other studying techniques.

New York Times
The Huffington Post
The Telegraph

In another report in the journal of Science, researchers at the University of Chicago found that writing about test anxiety before the test helps students to relieve stress and do better on the test.

University of Chicago press
Toronto Star
Globe and Mail

Summer and Fall courses

Summer courses for the M.A. for Teachers program offered by the mathematics department.

It was only recently that the course Math 5430 6.0 was split into two courses, one on probability and the other on statistics. We will be offering them both this summer with two different instructors.

Math 5440 3.0 : Probability for Teachers
Neal Madras
Monday and Thursday 6-9pm May 2-June 9

Math 5430 3.0 : Statistics for Teachers
Steven Chamberlin
Tuesday and Thursday 6-9pm July 5 - Aug 4

Fall classes:

Math 5020 6.0 : Fundamentals in Mathematics for Teachers
Mike Zabrocki
Mondays 6-9pm

Math 5420 6.0 : Algebra for Teachers
Ada Chan
Thursdays 6-9pm

Education is currently announcing:

Fall 2011:
MATH 5920/EDUC 5215 3.0 : Research in Math Ed. with instructor TBA.