Blog - Teaching and Learning Services

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Blog: From choosing a math textbook to writing one

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Some people regard math as a black-and-white subject. Such a sentiment has a certain degree of truth. Calculus two centuries ago is still calculus today. Theorems that have been rigorously established will not become untrue in the future unless our logical foundations... More

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Blog: From choosing a math textbook to writing one

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Some people regard math as a black-and-white subject. Such a sentiment has a certain degree of truth. Calculus two centuries ago is still calculus today. Theorems that have been rigorously established will not become untrue in the future unless our logical foundations... More

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Blog: Flexible evaluation

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics As a new academic year is about to begin, many instructors are in the process of drafting course outlines. When I was a student, I always went straight to the evaluation scheme as soon as I received a course outline. I suspect that many... More

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Blog: Can we take anything from the success of PokémonGo into teaching and learning?

By Claudia Buttera, Lab Coordinator, Department of Biology If you haven’t already heard of the absolute craze that is PokémonGo, here’s a brief overview from a non-gamer. The first Pokémon games launched in 1996 and were designed for Nintendo handhelds. The game is based on capturing, training, battling and trading virtual fictional... More

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Blog: Can we take anything from the success of PokémonGo into teaching and learning?

By Claudia Buttera, Lab Coordinator, Department of Biology If you haven’t already heard of the absolute craze that is PokémonGo, here’s a brief overview from a non-gamer. The first Pokémon games launched in 1996 and were designed for Nintendo handhelds. The game is based on capturing, training, battling and trading virtual fictional... More

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Blog: High-stake final exams: To give or not to give

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics In some countries, graduation from a degree program requires passing a number of high-stake exams. Examples of high-stake exams include the SAT, International Baccalaureate exams, and many licensure exams. Music exams administered by the Royal Conservatory of Music are also... More

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Blog: Should professors assign their own work?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Summer typically means the time to design fall course syllabi. In deciding which readings to include, should professors assign their own work? In the case of required books for purchase, there is the potential conflict of interest owing to the instructor profiting (however... More

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Blog: An unexpected advantage of the summer term

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Exams aren’t always popular among students (are they ever?). However, in a large math class, exams and tests are almost inevitable to ensure consistency in the assessment of students. In a previous blog article, I wrote about testing prerequisite knowledge at the... More

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Blog: The jagged profile

By Rosella Ingriselli, Educational Development Support, EDC As I sat at my desk planning for the upcoming EDC Summer Institute (yes, I just name dropped), which focuses on creating an inclusive classroom, I started doing some research on appropriate materials to include as part of the participants' “homework.” My quest led me to a... More

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Blog: In praise of online teaching – Thoughts as the first millennials turn 40

By Rebecca Bromwich, Instructor, Department of Law and Legal Studies We are riding a generational and technological wave into a new mobile age, and teaching and learning in higher education are along for the ride. I didn’t start off as a tech enthusiast, but recent experiences, and the example of a wonderful friend, have... More

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Blog: ThingLink: Student generated, interactive, multimodal images

By Allie Davidson, Educational Technology Development Coordinator I recently went to the CALICO conference at Michigan State University and attended a panel presentation with several instructors who are using the tool ThingLink to increase student engagement and foster critical thinking in the classroom. I think it can be used as a powerful tool... More

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Blog: Should you ask students whether they liked the book?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science In my course on graphic novels and political identity, I often like to open a class session by asking students whether they “liked” the book on offer that week. As an opener, it’s a softball question that can help put at ease students who might... More

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Blog: Should you ask students whether they liked the book?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science In my course on graphic novels and political identity, I often like to open a class session by asking students whether they “liked” the book on offer that week. As an opener, it’s a softball question that can help put at ease students who might... More

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Blog: Should professors reveal their views

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Should students know a professor’s views? I read with interest a recent article in Carleton’s Teaching and Learning newsletter about those of my colleagues, who, like me, teach courses on “controversial issues.” One colleague, who teaches about animal rights, asks the... More

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Blog: Captur[ing] Carleton: Engaging learners through screencasting

By Michele Hall, Educational Technology Development Coordinator, EDC The educational psychologist, John Dewey, once said, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” In my last blog post, I wrote about my own failures at teaching today when using yesterday’s model, the lecture, and noted a few strategies... More

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Blog: Captur[ing] Carleton: Engaging learners through screencasting

By Michele Hall, Educational Technology Development Coordinator, EDC The educational psychologist, John Dewey, once said, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” In my last blog post, I wrote about my own failures at teaching today when using yesterday’s model, the lecture, and noted a few strategies... More

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Blog: Beginning exams

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics About midway through the first time I taught MATH 3801, Linear Programming, I found out that many of my students did not remember what the rank of a matrix was. The rank of a matrix is a basic concept covered in first-year linear algebra.... More

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Blog: Beginning exams

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics About midway through the first time I taught MATH 3801, Linear Programming, I found out that many of my students did not remember what the rank of a matrix was. The rank of a matrix is a basic concept covered in first-year linear algebra.... More

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Blog: Beyond PowerPoint: EdTech and the active learning experience

By Michele Hall, Educational Technology Development Coordinator, EDC The EDC’s Teaching and Learning Symposium is fast upon us, and this year’s theme—Active Engagement: Success in the Classroom and Beyond—has me reflecting on how my own teaching practice has evolved over the years, from passive to interactive, and how it continues to... More

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Blog: The DIY syllabus

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Part of the job of higher education is getting students to shift from being consumers of knowledge to producers of it. The syllabus, or course outline, is one way in which we provide students with information and perspectives we expect them to master. But what... More

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Blog: The rise of AI in education

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics AlphaGo’s recent victory over 18-time world champion Lee Sedol at the game of Go in the Google DeepMind Challenge Match stunned the world. AlphaGo is a Go-playing computer program developed by Google subsidiary DeepMind. Its victory was a big deal because many people... More

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Blog: The rise of AI in education

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics AlphaGo's recent victory over 18-time world champion Lee Sedol at the game of Go in the Google DeepMind Challenge Match stunned the world. AlphaGo is a Go-playing computer program developed by Google subsidiary DeepMind. Its victory was a big deal because many people... More

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Blog: Who might be at risk in online courses?

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics It has been asserted (see, for example, Tony Bates’ e-book, Teaching in a digital age) that a properly designed online course covering a topic that can be taught online can work as well as a face-to-face course. Such an assertion is backed by the... More

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Blog: When course material is life-changing

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Sometimes the course material we assign can have unexpected effects. In my fourth-year seminar on graphic novels and political identity, I have allowed my syllabus to stray from a narrow view of my discipline. So while we study works on such topics as the Holocaust,... More

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Blog: When course material is life-changing

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Sometimes the course material we assign can have unexpected effects. In my fourth-year seminar on graphic novels and political identity, I have allowed my syllabus to stray from a narrow view of my discipline. So while we study works on such topics as the Holocaust,... More

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Blog: The use of simulation in teaching social work practice: A potential answer for the art and science of social work

By Kenta Asakura, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work First and foremost, I’m a social worker. Before my recent appointment as an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work here at Carleton, I spent over a decade providing individual, family and group counselling in various marginalized communities as a clinical social worker. As... More

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Blog: Lessons learned from teaching evaluations

By Kim Hellemans, Undergraduate Chair, Department of Neuroscience For the Fall 2014 semester, I received the lowest teaching evaluations in my 10-year career in university teaching. In a way, I expected them. I had come back to work in Fall 2014 after a 10-month maternity leave with my youngest daughter. To say I struggled... More

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Blog: Rethinking bias in teaching

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science When teaching controversial topics, particularly the kind that are known in everyday discourse to be polarizing, the question of professor “bias” is sometimes raised. Does every professor necessarily have a bias, and if so, is bias something that should be disclosed to... More

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Blog: Rethinking bias in teaching

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science When teaching controversial topics, particularly the kind that are known in everyday discourse to be polarizing, the question of professor “bias” is sometimes raised. Does every professor necessarily have a bias, and if so, is bias something that should be disclosed to... More

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Blog: “Why” vs. “WTF” questions

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science As the old adage goes, a famous physicist (I’ve seen the story attributed to both Richard Feynman and Isidor I. Rabi) became so successful not because he knew all the answers. Instead, it was because, when he’d return home from school each afternoon, his mother... More

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Blog: Saving critical inquiry

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science I’m no stranger to advocacy and opinion. As a columnist in various news outlets, I regularly bring my voice to bear on normative and policy issues. And I encourage my students to find their “opinion” voice, usually through teaching and assigning an “op-ed” writing... More

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Blog: A look at joint ventures in higher education

By R. L. Kirby PhD Dr. Roy L. Kirby divides his work between teaching at the Eric Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, where he has taught management subjects and interpersonal communications since 1997, and Jilin University/Lambton College in Changchun, China, where he has focused on teaching management subjects since 2005-06. The... More

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Blog: Why I’ve given up on final exams

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science I have mixed memories of final exams as an undergraduate. There was anxiety around memorizing the material, of course; there was camaraderie in forming late-night study groups; there was satisfaction in nailing an answer; there was relief after walking out of the examination... More

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Blog: Carleton makes great strides in exam invigilation

By Nestor B. Querido, Supervisor, CUOL A biometric screening. A passport/ID scanner. A body-scanning device. These are some of the testing tools being used at the Carleton University Testing Centre (CUTC) for high profile exams, such as the MCAT. CUOL has come a long way since we began facilitating exams 36 years ago. Last... More

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Blog: English 4115: Vivat Crescat Floreat

By Hugh Reid, Adjunct Research Professor, Department of English Language and Literature My first blog about English 4115, Culture and the Text, (but which I refer to as my ‘Rare Books’ course) was about the excitement students feel when handling 200-year-old books and trying to solve the mysteries of their materiality contained therein. The... More