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A&S T&L Community of Practice: Skill-Building Activities and Student Support in STEM Courses
February 28 @ 10:00 am - 11:00 am EST
Presented By: Faculty of Arts & Science
Assessing gains in communication skills in a large online statistics course
Presenters: Nathalie Moon and Samantha-Jo Caetano (Assistant Professors, Teaching Stream, Statistical Sciences)
In 2020-22, our foundational first-year statistics course shifted to being offered fully online (~500 students/term). We conducted a study over this period to investigate the impact of our course on the development of students’ communication skills. Given the large proportion of students for whom English is an additional language and the support of the English Language Learning (ELL) team in this course, we were particularly interested to assess how we were meeting the needs of this group. We also report on the course activities students found most beneficial to their learning and provide recommendations to guide the development of communication skills in online, hybrid, and in-person courses.
Low Stake, High Level Study Questions to Organize and Orient Students in STEM Courses
Presenter: Lindsey Shorser, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Departments of Mathematics and Computer Science
In this talk, we will discuss the use of “study questions” to bridge the gap between STEM skills (e.g., how to code, do mathematical calculations, etc.) and a big-picture understanding of when and how to use them. Specifically, we will look at the implementation of such study questions in mathematics (MAT224: Linear Algebra) and computer science (CSC207 Software Design). The timing of when students were presented with these questions, how they were motivated to engage with them, the benefits and drawbacks of this process, and student feedback will be discussed.
