About the Repository
The First-Year Mathematics and Statistics Courses Repository is a resource supporting an ongoing national dialogue about teaching first year mathematics and statistics at Canadian universities. This shareable dynamic online database contains extensive data collected from mathematics and statistics instructors across the country. Data includes course content, resource and technology used, learning outcomes, modes of delivery, connections with other courses, as well as informal descriptions of various practices in teaching these courses.
It is our hope that instructors (i.e., our contacts at all participating universities, or their colleagues) will keep the database up to date, as well as provide missing, and additional information.
The main purpose of the First-Year Mathematics and Statistics Courses Repository is to provide an open, organized and comprehensive resource of information about first-year mathematics and statistics courses at Canadian Universities. We hope to enrich the content as we move along.
Slides of the presentation (containing a broader context of our First-Year Math project and information about the Repository) that Veselin Jungic gave at the meeting of Canadian Mathematics and Statistics Department chairs in Ottawa, 23 March 2019.
Breaking news …
CBC, 23 September 2020: [Andie, Veselin, Miroslav] Let them cheat: Why it’s tempting for college and university instructors to look the other way (over 300 comments!)
Forthcoming conferences and meetings in 2020
♦ We continue our Online Teaching Meet Ups this Fall 2020 – we meet on selected Tuesdays, starting at 4pm EDT.
Each session will be approximately 1-1.5 hours with the following flexible structure: a short presentation, discussion in breakout rooms, and a general discussion. Each session will have a specific theme related to online teaching. We will send out a communication a week before each session so that you can prepare yourself to chat, share, and listen. The dates are:
29 September 2020: Debrief: how are things going? All together, and in groups, we’ll exchange our experiences, and (among other things) focus on two prompts: (1) what did go well? any positive surprizes? unexpected cool things in your classes? and (2) one thing, based on your experience, you suggest other people do not try.
20 October 2020: Online collaborative work in math and stats classes: What works, what does not work? Participants will describe (in 5-10 minutes, does not have to be formal) their strategies and experiences. Slides: Vanessa Radzimski: Collaborative Learning Online | Andrea Hyde: Teaching Math and Stats in “Alternate Delivery” Format
3 November 2020: Learning math and stats online? Let’s hear it from the TAs and students. Our students and teaching assistants will share their experiences as learners and teachers.
17 November 2020: Challenges and successes in teaching level 2 courses in math and stats. In the general discussion, among other things, we will try to address the following questions:
- What are we teaching in second-year math courses? And are these courses an adequate preparation for advanced math?
- What should we be teaching in the second-year, but are not?
- There is a well-known transitional challenge for students as they move from second-year to upper-year advanced math courses. How do we support them to better bridge that gap?
We’ll be back in January 2021!
♦ CMS Winter meeting (online, 3-8 December 2020)
Conferences and meetings in 2021
♦ Canadian Mathematics Society Summer Meeting, 4-7 June, 2021, in Ottawa *** Meeting information.
♦ *** POSTPONED to 2021, new dates TBA *** First-Year Math and Stats in Canada: Creating Epsilons of Improvement. [22-24 May 2020] University of Toronto Mississauga. Program, schedule, registration and other information to appear on the conference web page https://mcs.utm.utoronto.ca/utm2020
Link to our archive of past conferences and meetings
Brief notes
Veselin Jungic published his opinion piece “Despite the pandemic, the rules of academic integrity still apply” in University Affairs, 21 April 2020.
NEW! Registration in UBC Vancouver MATH courses as of 21 August 2019: 20,822 individual registrations. 9,579 of these are CALC 1 and CALC 2 courses, 5,267 are in 200-level courses, and 3,714 are in 300 level courses. If you are willing to share similar information about your university, please send an email to to our First-year Math and Stats in Canada Newsletter editors.
CMS Notes Editor-in-Chief Robert Dawson (St. Mary’s) published a short opinion piece “Why Do We Teach What We Teach?” in the latest issue (51(3), June 2019) of CMS Notes. To access it, visit CMS Digital Archive https://cms.math.ca/notes/.
A critique “Rethinking Teaching First-Year Mathematics in University” by Andie Burazin and Miroslav Lovric, appeared in the Proceedings of the 2018 CMESG meeting in Squamish, B.C. (pages 123-130).
CMESG Newsletter/Bulletin 35(2) May 2019 (pages 2-5) published the report “First Year Mathematics Repository Workshop BIRS, Banff, AB, February 8-10, 2019” by Andie Burazin, Veselin Jungic and Miroslav Lovric.
Links
First Year in Maths is a network of over 200 mathematicians, statisticians and educators teaching in universities, colleges and schools in Australia and New Zealand.
Have something interesting to share? Send your contribution to our First-year Math and Stats in Canada Newsletter editors.
Our Vision
We believe that only by sharing experiences, gathering data, and looking at research-based decisions and strategies, our mathematical teaching community can come up with ideas and initiatives for university faculty and instructors to restructure their programs and to respond to the demands that the realities of today’s living place on us and our students.
It is our belief that the contacts at a national level (such as the Mathematics Education Session at the CMS conference in Waterloo in December 2017, the First Year Conference in April 2018 at the Fields Institute, and the Winter CMS Session in Vancouver in December 2018) will connect, and unite Canadian teaching and research faculty in their efforts to provide the best, and most adequate, post-secondary math education possible, and will provide a forum for all involved to learn about the complexity of issues related to teaching mathematics. We see the national dialogue as an ongoing process that will keep us all connected and strengthen our community.
FAQ
1. Who is the intended audience?
All interested faculty in mathematics and statistics departments in Canada, mathematics and statistics department chairs, college instructors, high school teachers (grade 12 mostly) interested in knowing what’s going on in level 1 mathematics and statistics, as well as education developers and publishers.