2019 Spring

March - Equity in the classroom

Time and place

Friday, March 1st 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM in WWH 705

Readings

The topic for our March meeting is equity in the classroom. We have three readings on this topic. The first is a short article about Mathematical Microaggressions which asks the reader to reflect on the what unintended messages we are sending to our students. The second is an article by Judit Moschkovich outlining Research-Based approaches to creating equitable mathematics classrooms. Finally, we have the more detailed overview of strategies for creating equitable classrooms given by the final section of the MAA Instructional Practices guide.

Abell, M., Brady, L., Ensley, D., Ludwig, L. and Soto, H. Equity in Practice section of the MAA Instructional Practices Guide (pg 122)

Moschkovich, J. Equitable Practices in Mathematics Classrooms: Research-Based Recommendations Teaching for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics, Vol. 5, No. 1, Fall 2013 pg. 26 TODOS: Mathematics for ALL

Su, F. (2015) Mathematical Microaggressions MAA Focus October/November pg. 36

April - Rich mathematical tasks

Time and place

Friday, April 5th 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM in WWH 705

Readings

The topic of our April meeting is rich mathematical tasks. Our reading is a chapter of Carol Dweck and Joe Boaler's book Mathematical Mindsets. The chapter begins with six case studies of high quality mathematical tasks. Then, they analyze those tasks to give six strategies for adapting existing tasks to make them richer.

Boaler, J. and Dweck, C. Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative Mathe, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching. John Wiley & Sons 2015 (Chapter 5. Rich Mathematical Tasks pg. 57 - 91)

May - Multiple Choice Questions

Time and place

Friday, May 3rd 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM in WWH 705

Readings

In anticipation of Finals Week, our topic for this month is multiple choice questions. We will explore three aspects of this topic: best practices when writing questions, strategies for testing higher order thinking, and ways to assess the effectiveness of a question after it is administered. We have two sources for our discussion. The first is a review article published in the journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. This article summarizes best practices in composing multiple choice questions and also highlights some pitfalls to avoid. The second source is a summary of workshop on writing multiple choice questions. In addition to discussing some of the same best practices from the first article, the workshop summary also includes a discussion of strategies for assessing higher order thinking with multiple choice questions.

Xu, X., Kauer, S., & Tupy, S. (2016). Multiple-choice questions: Tips for optimizing assessment in-seat and online. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 2(2), 147-158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/stl0000062

Rauschert, Emily S. J. and Yang, Suann and Pigg, Rachel M. (2019). Which of the Following Is True: We Can Write Better Multiple Choice Questions The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 100(1) 12-9623 https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1468