STLF Report to CWSEI and Mathematics Department
STLF: Costanza Piccolo
Period: 6/01/12 – 10/02/12
Submitted: 10/02/12
Specific activities performed by STLF
1) Professional development
 Attended weekly STLF meetings.
 Attended Reading group meetings.
 Presented at the Lunch Series “Effective strategies for integrating Matlab programming skills in a
Linear algebra course: The new computer labs in Math 152”.
 Attended the Math Reading group. We read Martin, T. (2000), “Calculus students’ abilities to
solve geometric related rate problems”, Mathematics Education Research Journal, 12 (2), 74-91.
 Attended January Supper series on developing concepts inventories.
 Attended the new series of seminars run by the Math department graduate students on teaching
issues. The seminars are held weekly and are based on the readings of a collection of survey papers
found in “Making the Connection: Research and Teaching in Undergraduate Mathematics”
published by the Mathematical Association of America.
2) MATH SEI general meetings/activity:
 Held regular weekly group meetings, and individual meetings with each STLF.
 Attended monthly meeting with Sarah and the Math-SEI team.
 Attended monthly Working Group meeting with Sarah and other SEI directors.
 Met with Mike Bennett, the new Head of the Math Department, to discuss strategies for improving
interaction with the department and planning of new projects for CWSEI-MATH. We agreed that CWSEIMATH would initiate discussions with the Undergraduate Committee and the Undergraduate Chair (Rajiv
Gupta) regarding progress of current projects and planning of new projects. Thus I scheduled a meeting
with the undergrad committee for March 9.
 Updated CWSEI-MATH website at www.math.ubc.ca/~cwsei
 Met with Steph van Willigenburg, instructor of Math 230, to discuss opportunities to extend CWSEI
involvement in Math 230. Steph is very pleased with the student learning in her Math 230 class and
doesn’t see the need to continue with any assessments by cwsei. Katya thinks there’s still work to do on
that course, so I will ask her to write down her recommendations and I will present them to the Undergrad
committee for their review.
 Met with Andrew Rechnitzer to discuss progress in the Math 220 project.
 Reviewed Greg Meyer’s (from Math/CTLT) proposals for future projects. He’s applying for an
extension of his contract; most of the projects he’s planning to do have common interests to CWSEI so
we’ve discussed possible future collaboration.
 Worked with the Math dept administrator to prepare the list of CWSEI-math expenses for 2011-12.
 Initiated the re-appointment of Sandi. She will start working part time (19%) starting next week.
3) Course-specific meetings/activities
MATH 180/184 workshops:
 Contacted the Math 110 Head TA of the Math 110 workshops to schedule another observation of the
evaluation process implemented in that course.

Obtained term grades from the Math 184 instructor whose section we run oral assessments.
MATH 264 – Vector Calculus for Electrical Engineering
 Attended lectures and one tutorial session. The tutorial session is not actually a tutorial. The main
purpose of the session is evaluation. Because of lack of marking resources, the EE dept decided to
evaluate students orally during these weekly sessions. Students are given a set of problems in advance.
They work on them at home (in groups). During the tutorials, students are randomly called to work out
the solution of one such problem on the board. If the student needs help his/her group can help. Students
are assigned an individual mark as well as a group mark. Students also write multiple-choice quizzes. I
have not been able to see one of these quizzes yet, despite multiple requests. Will try again!
 Attendance is now steady at about 60% of enrolment
 Administered a midterm survey in class. Generally speaking, the results are positive. Most of the
students like the idea of integrating math and EE (electrostatics). Those who don't are either unhappy
with the implementation (they don't find the lectures coordinated), or feel overwhelmed by the material
and feel too confused/rushed to see the connection between the two subjects. As for what they would
like to see changed in the course, a few things came up:
1) 12% mentioned they want a textbook, especially for the EE portion;
2) 13% asked for more practice problems, either as homework or as optional assignment.
3) 11% would like to see the EE lecture notes improved with more examples/more readable handwriting.
4) about 12% would like to see changes in the evaluation system, they don't see much connection
between the quizzes and the lecture material and/or are unhappy with the grading scheme of negative
marks for wrong answers in the quizzes (quizzes are multiple-choice).
5) ~15% of the students is unhappy with the teaching style, about half of them criticized the use of prewritten notes in the math lectures, the other half the constant questioning in the EE on things they don't
know much about. If you add the 7% who just said they would like a different prof, you get about 1/4 of
the (attending) students who will probably give a negative teaching evaluation!
After Reading Week the content will move on to electromagnetism and the instructors will change. The
new math guy is a postdoc, so I hope he won’t object to have me sit in his lectures. Because of this
switch in instructors, I don’t know if it makes much sense for me to interview students after class.
MATH 101, Integral Calculus – WeBWork
 Selected problems from the National Problem Library to create weekly WebWorK assignments. The
selection is based on a list of textbook problems suggested by the instructor.
 Met with the instructor (Rajiv Gupta) to plan a midterm survey on the use of WebWork.
 Analysed responses to an end-of-term survey about WebWorK that was administered in Math 104
and 184 at the end of the last term. Overall results were OK but not as good as excepted. Most students
found the WeBWorK questions too challenging and above the level of difficulty required on exams.
This led to frustration and the feeling that WebWork assignments didn’t help them prepare for exams. I
didn’t review the WeBWork questions nor the exams, so I don’t know if this is a real concern. Warren,
who is using the same WeBWork assignments doesn’t think they are unreasonably difficult. In terms of
difference between the two courses, the most notable things are:
1) more students in 184 give up if they can't find the answer after a few attempts
Which of the following statements best describes your approach to answering
104
184 questions on WeBWork?
15.4% 7.0% I answer most of the questions correctly at my first or second attempt.
53.5% 52.7% I often rework the same problem a few times on my own until I get the correct answer.
28.1% 33.3% I prefer to consult resources (notes, etc.) or ask for help if I can't find the correct answer right away.
3.1% 7.0% I often give up if I can't find the correct answer after a few attempts.
2) more students in 184 use the drop-in centre and less go to office hours, and only about 12% of
students used the “email your instructor” option!
104
87.7%
11.9%
2.7%
23.8%
7.3%
5.8%
12.3%
10.8%
184
86.0%
11.6%
3.1%
32.6%
4.7%
12.4%
11.6%
8.5%
Whom do you ask for help with WeBWork problems? Check all that apply.
Other students in the course or other friends
WeBWork's email system ("Email your instructors" button)
Separate emails to my instructor/TA
TAs at the drop-in Learning Centre
Instructor/TA at office hours
Private tutor
I normally don't ask for help.
Other
3) more students in 184 found the WebWork questions harder than other problems in the course
(probably not surprisingly), and found WebWork syntax frustrating:
(%)
WeBWork problems are related to problems
on tests and/or class examples.
104
184
Strongly
Agree
8.1
13.2
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
46.2
50.4
20.8
14.7
18.1
17.8
Strongly
Disagree
6.5
3.9
WeBWork problems are good practice for
solving problems on tests.
104
184
15.4
22.5
46.2
42.6
19.6
14.7
10.8
15.5
7.3
4.7
The immediate responses I get from
WeBWork help me learn the course material.
104
184
16.9
25.6
41.2
34.9
23.1
26.4
13.8
9.3
3.8
3.9
I often get frustrated with WeBWork problems
due to their mathematical difficulty.
104
184
31.9
36.4
30
39.5
25.8
13.2
7.3
10.1
3.5
0
I often get frustrated by the particular syntax
required to submit answers to WeBWork.
104
184
27.3
24.0
27.3
38.0
23.8
18.6
17.7
14.0
3.5
4.7
Finally, some of the student comments are quite revealing as in how little time these students are willing to
commit to studying math! For example, here is a comment from a Math 184 student:
“For future students, please make webwork questions more relevant to the midterms and finals. To many students,
webwork is a waste of time due to the unncessary difficulty that does not prepare us for midterms or finals , only
making us stressed to complete these irrelevant assignments. Even professors admit that these questions are of
difficulty such that it would not be on a midterm or final. Throughout this couse, webwork has NOT helped me prepare
for any exams, quizzes, or assignments. It only took my own time away from studying better for the midterms. On
average, many students needed three hours to complete a week of webwork.”
MATH 101 – Calculus Diagnostic Test
 With Greg Meyer from Math/CTLT developed and run a short calculus diagnostic test in one of the
sections of Math 101, Integral Calculus for Science and Engineering students. Most of the questions were
based on Warren’s test used last year in Math 104. The most interesting result is the difference in
performance on routine calculations by the students who did not take Calc1 the previous semester (and thus
haven’t done much math for a year). For example, 74% of students who completed their pre-requisite course
in 2011/12 could take the derivative of y = x exp(-x2) correctly, but only 23% of those who completed their
pre-requisite course in 2010/11 did. So retention of basic calculations decreases drastically over the course
of one year. It will be interesting to see how these students do in the course, considering that in that section
about 38% of the students delayed Calc2 by a year.
MATH 104: Instructional methods experiment

Coded the question on related rates, one of the topics used for the in-class intervention. The
experimental section showed more occurrences of the following desirable behaviours:
- persistence (only 4% of students left the question blank vs 10% in the control section).
- using the correct geometrical relationship to relate relevant quantities (70% vs 63%).
- identifying a certain variable as a constant (23% in the experimental section vs 14.5%) and
avoiding the opposite error of assuming a certain variable to be constant (only 6% of the
students in the experimental section made this error vs 12% in the control section).
- avoiding the application of memorized formulas without the correct assumptions (a typical
error for students who apply memorized procedures without understanding), only 7.5% of
students made such error in the experimental section vs 16% in the control section.
However, the control section showed more occurrences of other desirable behaviours:
- perfect solution (33% vs 29%)
- correctly identifying the physical relationship between two rates of change (67% in the
control section vs 57% in the experimental section)
- correctly translating the information given in the problem statement in terms of mathematical
variables (18% vs 25%)
- performing differentiation correctly (only 21.5% of students in the control section made an
error in the differentiation, vs 28% in the experimental section).
 Designed a marking scheme for the other exam questions that we plan to code. The TA is currently
marking them.
Plans for immediate future work
MATH 360
1. meet with the instructor to review the course and plan changes for next year.
2. develop topic-level learning goals.
3. develop/adapt existing surveys on student attitudes to the use of computers to measure the
effective of the course of students’ attitudes.
MATH 264
1. review course content of pre-req courses to make sure the instructors’ expectations are realistic.
2. continue to attend lectures and plan further student surveys
3. review quizzes and exams for consistency with course material
4. review lecture notes to create learning goals for the math portion of the course.
Other plans:
1. analyse data collected from the 2010 Math 180 final exams regarding student ability to set up
and solve problems
2. analyse student responses to online diagnostic tests in Math 307 to inform future instructors of
student difficulties.
3. upload materials for CWSEI-involved courses on the department course database.