Teaching Dossier Example

Teaching Dossier
Douglas Stebila
Dept. of Combinatorics & Optimization, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
dstebila@uwaterloo.ca
2008 March 16
Contents
1 Teaching philosophy statement 2
2 Teaching responsibilities 3
3 Teaching strategies 4
4 Preparation for teaching 6
5 Evaluation of teaching 7
6 Future teaching goals 8
A Teaching materials 10
A.1 Course outline, Linear Algebra (MATH 136) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
A.2 Sample lecture notes, Linear Algebra (MATH 136) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
A.3 Sample assignment questions, Linear Algebra (MATH 136) . . . . . . . . . . 12
B Letters from colleagues 13
B.1 Observations from Certicate in University Teaching program . . . . . . . . 13
B.2 Letter from Chair of Department of Combinatorics & Optimization, Uni-
versity of Waterloo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Teaching dossier originally submitted for the Certicate in University Teaching at the Centre for Teach-
ing Excellence, University of Waterloo.
1
Teaching Dossier Douglas Stebila
C Course evaluations 16
C.1 Evaluation summary Spring 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
C.2 Evaluation summary Spring 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
C.3 Evaluation comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
C.4 Student comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1 Teaching philosophy statement
As much as an instructor can explain and encourage, I believe learning is ultimately
driven by students, who must learn material by and for themselves. In mathematics,
this is particularly true, for students must practice the techniques they learn in class and
apply them to new problems. My goal as a teacher, then, is to provide strong support
for student-driven learning. I believe instructors should support student learning by un-
derstanding and meeting students varied goals, teaching with clarity and structure, and
creating opportunities for student participation and interaction.
An instructor must understand students varied goals in order to effectively motivate
learning. In each class, students come from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines or sub-
disciplines, and have different goals; all of these factors play a role in students motivation
and efforts. I believe that students need to see how the course material is relevant to a
problem or subject that they care about, or else it will be difcult to sustain their interest.
A common linear algebra course will, for example, be approached differently by com-
puter scientists (who are interested in computer graphics applications), actuaries (inter-
ested in optimization), and pure mathematicans (intrigued by more abstract properties).
When I teach, I try to nd out the topics in which my class is interested by asking students
their interests at the beginning of the term and then design assignment problems, short
examples, and even entire lectures on relevant applications of interest to the class.
In lectures, an instructor must clearly present his/her ideas and place them structurally
in context in order to remove barriers to student-driven learning. Mathematics is a scary
subject for some students, so minimizing notation and jargon is useful in providing clar-
ity to these students. Because students have different learning styles some are global
learners who like to see the big picture, while others are sequential learners who like to
see one bit at a time it is important for instructors to provide structure that adapts to
both styles. Global learners like to see connections to other aspects of the course and to
other subjects, whereas sequential learners like to see course material that follows from
one topic to the next. I structure my lectures to clearly organize the material, always
marking Denition, Theorem, Proof, or Example wherever appropriate, and try
2
to draw connections between the material at hand and previous topics in this or other
courses.
Student participation is the most important part of the learning process. The purpose
of learning mathematics is to develop tools that can be used to solve new problems, be
they theoretical or practical. Student participation in class helps students integrate new
ideas into their knowledge base and helps the instructor gauge success. My best math
teacher, a high school instructor named Mr. Bruce White, taught me math in an interac-
tive, problem-solving environment. Students discussed and presented at the board their
solutions to problems, and these problems were motivation for and illustrative of the lec-
ture material. In presenting their ideas, students had to organize and critically evaluate
their arguments. Moreover, Mr. White found a way to make mathematics a social activ-
ity, thereby motivating student participation. I try to do this in my teaching by designing
points of interaction into lectures and using tutorial time to get students to present their
solutions to problems.
2 Teaching responsibilities
Lecturer. I have been an instructor for a multi-section rst-year course in Linear Alge-
bra for math majors (MATH 136) for two terms (Spring 2006, 100 students; Spring 2007,
116 students) at the University of Waterloo. Although the course syllabus (Appendix A.1)
was set by the course coordinator, I was responsible for designing lecture material for my
section, helping develop assignment material, supervising graduate teaching assistants
and undergraduate markers, developing exam questions, marking midterm and nal ex-
ams, and holding ofce hours.
Teaching assistant. I have also been a graduate teaching assistant for two upper-year
courses, one in Graph Theory (CO342, Fall 2004, 73 students) and one in QuantumCom-
puting (CO 481, Winter 2007, 37 students), both at the University of Waterloo. For Graph
Theory, I held ofce hours and marked assignments. For Quantum Computing, I helped
develop assignment solutions, maintained the course website, marked assignments, and
held ofce hours; my efforts in this course were recognized by my department chair who
considered me for an Outstanding Teaching Assistant award (see Appendix B.2).
3
3 Teaching strategies
Review previous lecture at the beginning of each class. At the beginning of each lec-
ture, I spend two to three minutes reviewing the major topics from the previous lecture,
restating important theorems and denitions. This serves a number of purposes. By do-
ing this at the start of each lecture, it provides a consistent start to each lecture and is a
cue for students to focus on the lecture. Since the review only covers previous material,
no new content is missed if there are small disruptions from students entering late. It also
helps place the previous material in context for the present lecture. While every instructor
would like their students to be reviewing their notes and text in between lectures, I am
realistic about the fact that most students will not, and providing a review helps students
remember what was important from last time. A sample lecture review is included at the
beginning of the sample lecture notes in Appendix A.2.
Minimize notation and organize presentation. When I rst taught Linear Algebra, I
discovered that many of these rst year students had problems with notation I used even
after I explained it many times students couldnt remember the difference between , ,
and (for subspaces). As a result, I now try to minimize the use of notation in lectures,
preferring to spend an extra few seconds writing out is a subspace of rather than using
the less-common notation , for example. I recognize that students copy almost directly
from the blackboard to create their notes in most math classes, so I explicitly indicate for
each item what it is a denition, theorem, proof, example, fact, or corollary. I consis-
tently structure my lectures to lead from motivation to denition to theorem to proof to
example, providing a standard progression typical of mathematical thinking; the sample
lecture notes in Appendix A.2 illustrate such a progression.
Design points of interaction into lectures. When I prepare my lecture notes, I explicitly
mark places where I can ask questions of the class. Rather than making generic queries
like are there any questions?, I instead look for places where I can ask students to
complete equations, recommend techniques for trying to solve a given problem, or ask
true/false questions to gauge student understanding. When I rst started lecturing, I
noticed that I had a hard time doing this on an ad hoc basis, so I adopted the practice of
explicitly designing these points of interaction into lectures, an example of which is given
in Appendix A.2. I also had a tendency to only wait a couple of seconds and then answer
the question myself if no answer was forthcoming; I am now much better at waiting for
student replies, even if it results in 5-10 seconds of unusual silence. I have found that
these points of interaction become natural times for students to ask their own questions,
4
and are much more likely to ask a question at one of these times rather than at an any
questions? prompt.
Describe non-trivial, relevant applications of theoretical material. While some stu-
dents enjoy the abstract beauty of mathematics, many see it as a tool to accomplish other
tasks. For these students, I try to provide relevant applications of the theoretical material.
Like many lecturers, I include simple application-oriented examples into lectures and
assignments. However, I also try to go into greater depth with applications and show
how they are non-trivial uses of the theoretical material. For example, in my rst-year
Linear Algebra course, I spend two lecture hours on error-correcting codes as an appli-
cation. While not part of the standard course syllabus, I think it is an excellent example
of important properties of linear algebra. It illustrates basic techniques such as matrix
multiplication and linear independence, but is also dependent on the deeper notion of
kernels of linear transformations, which is a new topic to the students in the class.
Use regular assignments to reinforce lecture material. For rst- and second-year courses,
I like to assign students weekly problem sheets to allow them to practice the course
material. In upper-year courses, I still believe students should do regular assignments,
though not necessarily every week as upper-year assignments may have more advanced,
in-depth problems requiring more time to complete. I prefer smaller, frequent assign-
ments instead of larger, infrequent assignments, because infrequent assignments mean
that students who do not study the material at their own initiative will fall behind with-
out practice. A weekly assignment from my rst-year Linear Algebra course is included
in Appendix A.3.
Students present solutions in tutorials. In high school, one teacher used problem solv-
ing sessions in which students presented their solutions to the rest of the class. I found
this an incredibly valuable way of developing my knowledge and mathematical commu-
nication skills. In a reviewsession for my Linear Algebra course, I provided students with
a problem sheet ahead of time and then had volunteers present their solutions. Although
I was concerned that students would be unwilling to get up in front of their peers, I was
pleased to nd I had no trouble getting students to volunteer, and even weaker students
who were not certain about their solutions were willing to give it a try. In future courses,
I would like to extend this to be a required component of the course, with students pre-
senting and discussion solutions to problems in tutorial sections. This proposed activity
was the focus of a paper I wrote for the Certicate in University Teaching (described in
the next section).
5
4 Preparation for teaching
Between Fall 2004 and Winter 2008, I participated in the Certicate in University Teaching
(CUT) program offered by the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE, formerly TRACE) of
the University of Waterloo. There are three courses required for the program. I completed
the program in Winter 2008.
Preparing for University Teaching (GS 901) requires participation in 6 teaching work-
shops (each averaging 1.5 hours in length) and the submission of 4 short (2-3 page) re-
sponse papers. For this course, I attended workshops on course design, learning styles,
professionalismin the classroom, presenting versus lecturing, voice projection, and teach-
ing large classes. In the learning styles workshop, for example, we studied the Soloman-
Felder Index of Learning Styles, which describes four learning scales and how students
can have different preferences on these scales. I use what I learned in this workshop to
try to strike an appropriate balance between visual and verbal learning in lectures and to
organize information for both sequential and global learners.
Preparing for an Academic Career (GS 902) requires the preparation of a teaching dossier
and research paper. For each of these, one attends a workshop and subsequent consulta-
tion session before submission. I rst prepared this teaching dossier for this course. My
research report was entitled Improving formal reasoning in mathematics through tutori-
als. I learned about comprehension tests, which are questions designed to help students
improve formal reasoning and skills at proof validation. In my report, I discussed my
proposal for small (30-student) tutorials in which students presented their solutions to
comprehension test-style questions and discussed them with their peers. I look forward
to trying out this proposal in a future teaching opportunity.
Teaching Practicum (GS 903) consists of three observed teaching events. For each obser-
vation, a trained staff member from the CTE ofce attends the event and provides written
feedback consisting of aspects to maintain and targets for change and improvement. My
teaching observations were completed in Spring 2006 when I was teaching Linear Alge-
bra (MATH 136). I have included some comments from these teaching evaluations in
Section 5 and additionally in Appendix B.1.
In addition to the certicate program described above, I attended teaching assistant train-
ing in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo upon starting my PhD
program. I have subsequently participated in this training session as a senior graduate
student, offering advice to new graduate students on how to be a good teaching assistant.
6
5 Evaluation of teaching
Student evaluations. As an instructor, I have had my teaching observed by faculty
members from my department and trained observers from the Centre for Teaching Ex-
cellence at the University of Waterloo. Additionally, my students have completed course
evaluation forms. On quantitative criterion, students ranked me better compared with
other instructors of the same course, and I have demonstrated improvement over multi-
ple terms of teaching. Students qualitative comments are consistently positive.
For the Linear Algebra course (MATH 136) that I taught in Spring 2006, students eval-
uated my overall effectiveness as an instructor and the organization and coherence of
my lectures substantially better than instructors of other sections of the same course that
term, and my evaluations even improved from my Spring 2006 to my Spring 2007 teach-
ing, as shown in the following table. In the Spring 2007 term, 93% of students rated me
as an excellent or good overall instructor.
Evaluation criterion Response Me Instructors of
other sections
Spring 2006 Spring 2007 Spring 2006
Organization and
coherence of lectures
Excellent 47% 60% 10%
Good 40% 37% 37%
Exc.+Good 87% 97% 47%
Instructors treatment
of students questions
Good 47% 33% 38%
Exc.+Good 80% 85% 61%
Overall effectiveness
as an instructor
Good 36% 38% 42%
Exc.+Good 78% 93% 55%
(See Appendices C.1 and C.2 for a numerical summary of my course evaluations for
Spring 2006 and Spring 2007, respectively, and Appendix C.3 for a comparison with other
instructors for Spring 2006.)
As I indicated in my teaching philosophy, I believe it is important for an instructor to
teach with clarity and structure. I was very pleased that most (80%) students thought the
level of my explanations were just right and that the same number of students thought
my treatment of students questions was excellent or good. Students commented that
I organized the material quite well and that I give clear lectures, effective communica-
tion, [and] focus on what is important.
7
Student comments also reinforced some of my teaching strategies from Section 3. One
student commented that I gave good summaries of previous class material, referring
to my technique of reviewing the previous class at the beginning of each lecture, and
that I handle[d] students questions perfectly. Another student commented that they
[enjoyed] the practical applications, and one student described me as By far, the best
instructor I had during rst year. More student comments are included in Appendix C.4.
Observed teaching events. While completing the Teaching Practicum course for the
Certicate in University Teaching (c.f. Section 4), I had some lectures observed by trained
observers. Since my observed teaching events were spaced throughout the term, I was
able to incorporate feedback from early evaluations in my lectures and gauge my suc-
cess. In an early observation, it was noted that my question asking strategies could be
improved. In preparing for subsequent lectures, I identied points in each lecture where
I could ask focused, specic questions. In a later observation event, I received feedback
that I had addressed this area well:
I liked how you asked a number of questions throughout the lecture in an
attempt to engage students in the learning process. One of the things that
you did during your lecture to facilitate student learning was to ask students
to complete equations that you wrote on the board. . . . This really facilitates
student learning.
The teaching observation report in Appendix B.1 gives an example of further comments
on my teaching from the trained observer from the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the
University of Waterloo.
6 Future teaching goals
I would like to teach a variety of courses at different levels in a university setting. I
have enjoyed teaching rst-year courses and would like to continue teaching introduc-
tory courses in algebra, combinatorics, discrete mathematics, and theoretical computer
science.
In future introductory math courses, I would like to try a new technique of using weekly
tutorial sessions to have students present their solutions to problems. I have tried out
this technique in review sessions in previous linear algebra courses with some success.
8
I would like to integrate it more tightly into future courses to provide students more
opportunities to interact with each other and the instructor. Over the course of the term,
each student would have to present one problem (which they receive about a week in
advance) and would be evaluated on correctness (50%) as well as clarity and presentation
(50%), contributing around 4% to the nal grade.
I am also interested in teaching senior courses, especially in my area of research, cryp-
tography, and in related areas such as quantum computing, error-correcting codes, and
computational complexity theory. In particular, I would like to design and teach a fourth-
year or graduate-level topics course on network security, rst teaching the mathematical
structures behind security protocols on the Internet today (e.g., the Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL)) and then examining case studies of security successes and failures (e.g., the Wired
Equivalent Protocol (WEP) for wireless security).
9
A Teaching materials
A.1 Course outline, Linear Algebra (MATH 136)
MATH 136 LINEAR ALGEBRA I Spring 2007
Sect. Time Location Instructor Oce Phone email
001 11:30 MWF MC 4059 Homan, Peter MC 5058 x35564 phoman@math
Mon. tutorial MC2065
002 9:30 MWF MC 4021 Stebila, Douglas MC5136A x36895 dstebila@math
003 10:30 MWF MC 1085 Wu, Shengli MC5153 x36008 s3wu@math
Prerequisites: MATH 135 or MATH 145
Textbook: Linear Algebra and its Applications (3rd edition), by David C. Lay (available in the bookstore).
Websites: Each section will have its own website. Your lecturer will provide the URL.
Calculators: Only the calculators provided by the Faculty will be allowed on midterm and nal exams.
Tutorials: These begin on Monday, May 7.
Tutorial Centre is open for MATH 136, Mondays and Tuesdays, starting May 7th.
Assignments: There will be eight assignments to be handed in, with your name and ID# on it, please!
Assignments will vary slightly from section to section, to account for individual lecturers preferences in
order and pace of course topics. The best 6 of Assignments 1 through 7 will be counted, as will Assignment
8. Each counted assignment will be worth slightly less than 2% of your nal grade in the course, totalling
12%, plus the 3% for MATLAB work. These are due to be handed in on designated Wednesdays by 1 p.m.
into the Drop Boxes outside the Tutorial Centre. Late assignments will not be graded, and will receive
a mark smaller than any positive real number.
Solutions: Solutions to weekly assignments will be posted on your sections web site at most one week
after the due date.
Midterm Exam: There will be one common 90 minute midterm exam, taking place on Monday, June 4
from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. It will be worth 20% of your nal grade in the course.
Final Exam: There will be a common 2.5-hour nal exam held during the examination period.
Labs: MATH 136 has a lab component, where you will learn to use MATLAB. The MATLAB component
of the course is separate from, but complementary to, the lecture component. You will be scheduled into
an introductory lab slot. It is important that you attend this session to learn the basics of MATLAB.
There will be one lab to be handed in, worth 3% of your grade in the course, which you will be expected to
complete on your own time. This is due on Wednesday, July 18. You will not be tested on the MATLAB
component of the course.
Grades: Final exam: 65%; Midterm Test: 20%; Assignments: 12%; Lab: 3%.
10
A.2 Sample lecture notes, Linear Algebra (MATH 136)
11
A.3 Sample assignment questions, Linear Algebra (MATH 136)
1. [5 marks] Let S = {a + bt
2
+ bt
6
| a R, b R}. Show that S is a subspace of P
6
.
Find a basis for S.
2. [7 marks] Dene S : P
2
R
4
by
S(p) :=
(2)
p
(0)
p(1)
p(1) + p
(1)
,
where p
, p
are the rst and second derivatives of the polynomial function p.

(a) [2 marks] Show that S is linear.
(b) [2 marks] Find a basis for Ker(S), if the latter is not just {
0}.
(c) [1 mark] Is S one-to-one? (That is, is it injective?) Why or why not?
(d) [1 mark] Find a basis for the range of S.
(e) [1 mark] Is S onto? (That is, is it surjective?) Why or why not?
3. [10 marks] Error-correcting codes. Let H =
0 0 0 1 1 1 1
0 1 1 0 0 1 1
1 0 1 0 1 0 1
. The following
four vectors form a basis for NulH:
1 0 0 0 0 1 1

0 1 0 0 1 0 1
0 0 1 0 1 1 0

0 0 0 1 1 1 1
Let A be the 7 4 matrix whose columns are the basis vectors above.
(a) [2 marks] Encode the messages (i) 1100 and (ii) 0101 using the encoding matrix
A.
(b) [4 marks] For the received encoded messages (i) x = 0110011 and (ii) x =
1001011, compute Hx. What does the value of Hx tell you?
(c) [4 marks] For each received encoded message in the previous part, determine
which bit of x, if any, has been ipped. Then correct the ipped bit (if neces-
sary) to obtain x
and solve A m = x
to determine the original message m.

More information on error-correcting codes can be found in the Case Studies on the website
for the course textbook, which is linked to from the course website. Notes from the error-
correcting codes lectures can also be found on the course website under Lessons and Files
Lecture Notes.
12
B Letters from colleagues
B.1 Observations from Certicate in University Teaching program
13
14
B.2 Letter from Chair of Department of Combinatorics & Optimiza-
tion, University of Waterloo
15
C Course evaluations
C.1 Evaluation summary Spring 2006
16
C.2 Evaluation summary Spring 2007
17
C.3 Evaluation comparison
This section provides come context for the course evaluation information in Appendix C.1 for the
Linear Algebra (MATH 136) course I taught at the University of Waterloo in Spring 2006. I have
selected 3 key characteristics (organization and coherence, treatment of students questions, and
overall effectiveness) and compared my evaluations (a) to other instructors of the same course (b)
and other rst year course instructors (c) for the same term.
1) Evaluate the organization and coherence of the lectures
Excellent Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory Very poor
(a) Me 47% 40% 11% 0% 2%
(b) Other course instructors 10% 37% 34% 11% 8%
(c) All rst year instructors 33% 44% 14% 6% 2%
3) Evaluate the instructors treatment of students questions
(a) Me 33% 47% 16% 4% 0%
8) Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the instructor as a teacher
(a) Me 42% 36% 20% 0% 2%
Note: percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding.
18
C.4 Student comments
These comments were submitted on course evaluations by students in the Linear Algebra (MATH
136) course I taught at the University of Waterloo in Spring 2006.
He provided many examples to apply the content taught, and was persistent to en-
sure students understood the material. Positive [class atmosphere], as many people
came to this section because of the thorough notes the instructor gave.
[Enjoyed] the practical applications.
Very good lecture notes, easy to follow when reading them later.
Moves through the material at a very appropriate pace, and provides insight into
the usefulness of the material.
Good organization, explained things well, good summaries of previous class ma-
terial.
These comments were submitted on course evaluations by students in the Linear Algebra (MATH
136) course I taught at the University of Waterloo in Spring 2007.
The instructor has been very helpful to the actual learning process. Instead of
penalizing students who miss class, he posts required notes on the course website
which really helps on the occasional time I miss a lecture. Also, his course website
is the most update and complete I have seen.
I loved how he was so organized and he had excellent communication skills (oral
& written).
He was very clear, well paced, helpful and fun to listen to.
Clear explanation, good visual presentation; only he let me feel that MATH 136
makes sense to me.
Very approachable, willing to answer questions, not intimidating.
Keeps the class going at an excellent pace to keep students interested but not get
too far ahead. Handles students questions perfectly.
Awesome! I loved your class, you made it interesting and were very informative.
19
Explanation / examples in the lecture were great. Writing big on the board was
very helpful for students at the back; organizing the blackboard was well done.
Great communication with students, gave the impression that he was there because
he wanted to be, not because he had to. Was obviously passionate of the course
material.
Everything was done very well. Clear presentation, handled questions well, very
organized, updated the UW-ACE website extremely regularly. By far, the best in-
structor I had during rst year.
The following comments were submitted on the website RateMyProfessors.com and refer to the
Linear Algebra (MATH 136) course I taught at the University of Waterloo in Spring 2006.
I thought I would never meet another great prof like Vanderburgh, until I took
MATH 136 with Stebila. = ) I nominated Vanderburgh for best teacher award, but
next year, Stebila has my vote!! Keep up the good work, you will be one of the best
lecturers at UWaterloo math!
He is an awesome prof. He even posted all his lecture notes online in case you
missed any of his lectures. Very clear and makes sure you understand. Moderate
assignments, and easy midterm.
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are the rst and second derivatives of the polynomial function p.

to determine the original message m.

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