{"id":213,"date":"2012-06-11T11:21:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T16:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/?page_id=213"},"modified":"2012-08-18T13:30:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-18T18:30:30","slug":"engaging-content","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/teaching\/engaging-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaging Content"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the sections which follow I will highlight a few examples of the various resources I employ to make course content more engaging. \u00a0A few representative examples are provided below, but a more exhaustive list of work can be found in the\u00a0Appendix: Teaching<\/a>\u00a0section of the portfolio.<\/p>\n

Course Blogs<\/h1>\n

When the course blog system was made available beginning in the Fall 2009, I was excited at the opportunity to use the blog as a content hosting site, LMS, and to help facilitate class discussion. \u00a0To date, I have created and maintained 17 separate course blogs for students across all courses I teach. \u00a0I have provided links to a few of them below for you convenience.<\/p>\n

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LaTeX Lecture Slides<\/h1>\n

Effective and efficient mathematical typesetting remains a problem even today. \u00a0When new products like iBooks Author release without any usable means of typesetting involved mathematical constructs it is disappointing to say the least and frustrating for users at best. \u00a0To expect students to suffer through content in a mathematics class without top notch mathematical notation, documents, etc… is equally frustrating. \u00a0Since graduate school I have worked hard on improving my overall competence with using the LaTeX document preparation system to write lecture notes and slides for my students. \u00a0LaTeX<\/a>\u00a0is the industry standard for mathematical and scientific publication. \u00a0Because of this I try to expose my students to its use at multiple levels within a course. \u00a0In the past I have assigned projects to be completed in LaTeX, and all content in the course is produced using LaTeX or LaTeX Beamer<\/a>. \u00a0I have provided a few examples of course notes rendered in LaTeX for your convenience. \u00a0The examples are presented in chronological order to demonstrate my personal growth in using the software over time. Please click on each image to view the full set of lecture notes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>More examples of in-class content can be found in the Appendix: Teaching<\/a> section and in the course blogs linked above. \u00a0In any given semester I produce around 30 lectures similar to those above per class.<\/p>\n

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Creative Course Projects<\/h1>\n

I have created a variety of creative projects for students in my courses over the last five years. \u00a0I will briefly describe two of the more effective projects I have developed.<\/p>\n

MATH 361: Screen Casting Project<\/span><\/p>\n

In MATH 361, Ordinary Differential Equations, students are tasked with completing a screencast of their solution to a problem after each unit which utilizes Maple, the specific models of that unit, and an explanation of the techniques processes involved. \u00a0Students are organized into groups and part of their grade includes a peer review process and screening of the video with class feedback. \u00a0In addition students have created posters using LaTeX for the course as they would do for any undergraduate conference. This project was developed in conjunction with the Learning Studio and students are expected to work with the studio resources to produce their podcast. \u00a0A few of the project materials and an example of student work are provided below for your convenience.<\/p>\n

Student Poster Example<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Screencast Example<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RKhkjr79wN4&list=37D7A52B748CFEAC<\/p>\n

Student Peer Review<\/a><\/p>\n

Class Project Guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n

Screen Cast Rubric<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0MATH 227: \u00a0Proof through Original Texts Project<\/span><\/p>\n

The discrete mathematics course is a math major’s first introduction to concepts of narrative proof in mathematics. \u00a0This course is a struggle for many students and much time is spent engaging students in the idea of what it means to write as a mathematician. \u00a0To this end, I thought it would be interesting to provide students with original sources of some of the great mathematicians and ask them to explain the works using modern notations and syntax. \u00a0 Additionally, students were asked to complete their papers using LaTeX and so the project served as an introduction to the typesetting program for many of the students as well. \u00a0 An example of one of the prompts is provided below.<\/p>\n

Leibniz-Neumann LaTeX Prompt<\/a><\/p>\n

MATH 120: Integration of Faith and Learning<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the units we discuss in the quantitative reasoning course deals with personal finance including things like IRA, loan amortization, interest, and mortgages. \u00a0After each of the three units: \u00a0probability, statistics, and finance I assign students a short reflection paper dealing with looking at each of these topics through the lenses of the students’ faith. \u00a0The students tend to enjoy these prompts, in particular the finance one, and we take a day during each unit to watch a video related to the prompt and have class discussions related to the talk. \u00a0 I have included a few materials below for your convenience and a really excellent example of a video I use to spur discussion on the probability topic “Reasoning With Uncertainty”.<\/p>\n

Faith and Finance Article<\/a><\/p>\n

Reasoning With Uncertainty Prompt<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Finance Paper<\/a><\/p>\n

[youtube kLmzxmRcUTo]<\/p>\n

Screen Casts<\/h1>\n

Not only do I ask my students to create screencasts of their work, but I have on multiple\u00a0occasions created my own screencast tutorial videos on a variety of topics. \u00a0I began by mostly making calculator tutorial videos, but have since expanded to homework videos, Maple tutorials, LaTeX tutorials, and lecture topic videos. \u00a0All videos are made available to students through the ACU course blog system, Xythos, or on my personal website<\/a>.\u00a0 A couple of sample videos are provided below for you convenience. \u00a0All videos are formatted for optimum viewing on iOS devices. \u00a0The more recent videos are also available in 720p HD format.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IFEVUYkAFy0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=njI4IuEUvgA<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2XbJvgxmohc<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kmHSoECyVfM<\/p>\n

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<<< Teaching Effectiveness <\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Student Mentoring >>><\/a><\/p>\n

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In the sections which follow I will highlight a few examples of the various resources I employ to make course content more engaging. \u00a0A few representative examples are provided below, but a more exhaustive list of work can be found … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":0,"parent":83,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-213","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/213\/revisions\/837"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/johnehrke\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}