Transforming Math Education: Strategies for Engagement in the Classroom

Maggie Grady: 0:03

Welcome to the Teaching Table, a monthly podcast where we'll engage in insightful conversations about the dynamic world of teaching, learning and technology within higher education. Brought to you by the University at Buffalo Office of Curriculum Assessment and Teaching Transformation, and made possible by the generous support of the Genteels' Excellence in Teaching Fund, this podcast aims to shed light on the pathways to educational excellence. I'm your host, Maggie Grady, a learning designer in CATT. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Corey Placito, a lecturer for the math department, for a discussion on innovative teaching, student success and what role the instructor plays in that. Welcome, Corey, and thank you for joining me.

Corey Placito: 0:44

Thank you so much for inviting me here to the podcast. It's great to see you again, Maggie. I'm really looking forward to sharing whatever bits of experience I can have that you can glean insight from from my teaching, but wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.

Maggie Grady: 0:58

Sure, so I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. When I first thought about who I wanted to interview and who I wanted as a guest on the Teaching Table podcast, I wanted engaging teachers that had a unique approach to reach their students, and I naturally thought of you. You and I first met back in 2018 in the effective teaching classes offered by our department. How do you feel you have evolved since you have first begun teaching?

Corey Placito: 1:23

How have I changed? Or how has my teaching changed? I mean, I guess I'd say I'm nothing if not a teacher, so either is okay, but you know I'd say I'm a lot more cognizant of my teaching overall and a lot more sensitive to different learning styles of my students. I feel, in general, that I do a better job of reaching more of my students through the lecture and the classroom experience and I definitely think going through those courses is very helpful and, you know, at least opening my eyes to what's available to me as an instructor, different paths that I can take to try to reach my students and, you know, giving me the tools necessary to further that.

Corey Placito: 2:00

Being at UB for so long, and I've been teaching here since 2012 which now would be about half of my life, there's been a lot of changes and I think you don't really notice that evolution in the smaller moments of it, like semester to semester, and maybe it could just be a student asking a different question that I've never been asked before and thinking of you know a response for that, trying to get into their mindset and trying to help out. But I think if you were to take a snapshot of me when I first started teaching at UB and compare it to a snapshot now, there's a lot of changes in my teaching. I think I've gotten much better at it better at approaching the material and making it a lot more comfortable for students. Right? I always want to try to keep a student- minded approach to my teaching.

Maggie Grady: 2:46

How do you feel that you have changed to adjust to the students needs, or how do you adjust to the students needs?

Corey Placito: 2:53

You know, I really try to be a lot more student centric. I try to be very compassionate to their position as a learner and make sure that they know that they can always come to me asking questions. After teaching for so many semesters I really start to see what the you know. Maybe it's better to say what the incorrect approaches are right. If I do something that doesn't seem to resonate with students, I'll be one of the first or second to realize that. I think maybe students pick up on that first through their own experience, their own unique lens and from a lot of trial and error.

Corey Placito: 3:30

I think I've really gotten to a place where now I know the best ways to approach material, what order to sort of go in as well. I think that's very important, especially in a mathematics classroom the order that we present different, not just different topics but within a specific topic. The order that we present different, not just different topics but within a specific topic, different foundations that are laid down for that specific mathematical device. I think that's important. So I'd say, just going through the usual life of a professor, you know, semester to semester things really get fine-tuned throughout you start to realize what's important with students, what resonates well with them and what doesn't, and that really helps to, I think, fine-t tune that experience into something that's most beneficial for them.

Maggie Grady: 4:09

Yeah, I agree with you on that. So I also ran, and this is I'm not going to embarrass you, but on UB Reddit you had such good reviews I don't know if you've seen them or not, but you had things such as legit the coolest professor at UB. People went on to say wish they had you as every teacher for every class. Other posts said the best professor ever. So what do you attribute that to?

Corey Placito: 4:39

That's very kind. I try not to go on to those sites too much because any negative comment will certainly make me feel not great about it, but it's nice to hear from you that there's a lot of positive things there. You know, I think that what makes me such an effective educator if I am one at all, to begin with is I think I'm a very good public speaker and I think that I do try to be entertaining, which sometimes does not work out in the classroom, but I think those skill sets really lend to helping out in the classroom. I think that the subject that I teach is almost secondary to that. I think that I could be a great lecturer standalone and I think that really comes from an ability to, you know, strong public speaking skills. You know trying to connect with students, yeah, and a little bit of entertainment here and there.

Maggie Grady: 5:32

So the reason that I ask you all of that is because math for me is, and was, extremely challenging. So what do you think some of the most effective strategies that you've used to making math more approachable to your students or understandable for your students?

Corey Placito: 5:50

You know, I think adopting multimodal learning and incorporating that into the classroom has been very important for students, especially in the classes that I'm teaching differential equations. We have Python projects, a little bit of coding there. We get really visual with the answers to viewing responses on slope fields, phase portraits, things like that. So there's definitely a very strong visual aspect to the course.

Corey Placito: 6:13

I would say that, you know, nothing can really take the place of or circumvent quality lecture and I am lucky to be teaching the course that I'm teaching differential equations, because students are very focused, they want to learn the material for their major right and I really do believe, first and foremost, that great students make good professors and not the other way around. So I do think that I am reaping the benefit of that. I think that one of the best ways that I could approach material for students is by helping with strong scaffolding. I think that's really at the pith and marrow of everything that I do as an educator. I'm always trying to connect with students and to find the best way to approach the material and, like mentioned, I do try to be entertaining so the course doesn't drag on so much. It can be a long semester, but I think sometimes the students could really do without some of the anecdotes.

Maggie Grady: 7:02

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that makes you human and they connect with you, so I think that's kind of nice. So, moving into innovative teaching approaches, ai, things of that nature, so in what ways do you, if at all, incorporate real world applications, maybe innovative teaching approaches or technologies? Do you use anything like that in your courses?

Corey Placito: 7:26

Well. So the course that I'm teaching differential equations is largely application-based. So most of what I teach, if not all of what I'm teaching, has applications at the helm of it. We do a lot of work with like mass spring dashpot systems, practical resonance resonance disaster phase portraits for predator prey systems as nonlinear systems, which I think really makes the Jacobian come alive in the mathematics. So I think that's beautiful. I think that the you know the real world applications are really important for students to get a strong idea as to you know why we care about what math has to offer.

Corey Placito: 8:00

I think sometimes the abstractions can be difficult for some students. Arithmetic-based operations, algebra and why are we adding two numbers together? Why are we solving for x? What is the point of this? And you know, I think it's important to have those applications so that students can see why it's so important. There is a bit of a trade-off to it because I think in some lower-level courses applications might also mean word problems. Some students don't love word problems, but I think the applications are very important. But I do want to mention the other side of that coin.

Corey Placito: 8:40

In my classroom we also discuss pure mathematics as well. I think that's very important. I mean, I have my unique lens as a mathematician. I think it's important that they have that side of it as well, because they're in their majors. They have the partner disciplines too, that really focus on the applications of what we're doing, and I think it's important for the students to also be somewhat subjected to, you know, the abstractions of pure mathematics, and some students wind up even enjoying it. A few of them will stop me and say you know, hey, I'm using the material that we learned in this class that I'm taking right, and then they'll go through and they'll talk about it, and it just makes me feel great that they retain the information. They're using it in their major, in a different course. They take good notes and they have those to fall back on, and that, I think, is the most important part, is what happens after they leave the classroom.

Maggie Grady: 9:30

Yeah.

Corey Placito: 9:31

You know we get our shared time together, which is wonderful, but I want to make sure that it's doing what it should be doing for them, and you know, hearing about those stories from previous students is ah, that's my favorite part.

Maggie Grady: 9:42

Yeah, I'm sure it is. How do you build the confidence in your students? Do you experience your students having a lot of math anxiety and how do you kind of, you know, curb that?

Corey Placito: 9:57

Well, I think this sort of falls under better consolidation of material. I think it's just you want to build confidence and rapport with the subject. So, for example, you want to think of your favorite thing to do. What are some of your favorite things to do, Maggie?

Maggie Grady: 10:08

I like to hike, I like to swim mostly outdoor things.

Corey Placito: 10:16

I'm a big fan of cats and guitar. These are some of the things that I love and if I think about those things, they don't really generate much anxiety on most levels. So I think the idea is I want to try to take mathematics and bring it into that light, bring it into that frame. If we can make mathematics into something fun that you're in love with, then maybe some of that anxiety can be alleviated. I also deliberately set up a syllabus to curtail some of this anxiety and I'm lucky that I'm still in a course where I can set my own syllabus. Some of our lower level courses have departmental syllabi, which I think are done very well, but in my course I will give three midterms these are just regular class exams and then I have a cumulative final at the end of the semester and of the three midterms I actually dropped the lowest exam score and the final exam is worth as much as a midterm is, so it's not worth more. It's not a higher stakes exam than just one of these regular in-class exams and also worth as much as an exam be it a final or a midterm is the homework, and I give students unlimited attempts on the homework, and it's really just for them to work out the kinks, make sure that they understand the material and are ready for these larger assessments. And then I have other things too, contributing to that final grade from the quizzes.

Corey Placito: 11:36

And we do coding projects with Python in our department, getting students to do some you know, some coding. We have some first-time students that have never coded before and are a bit sort of anxious about that. Understandably so. But in our 300-level courses like linear algebra and differential equations, we get students starting with coding and using Python and everyone leaves feeling, I think, much better about it. It gives them a new skill set and gives them something that, hey, they could even sort of put it on a resume if they'd like to, right. And we have some computer science majors that have coded but never using Python. We have people that I think thought they would survive through life with never having to do it. And then I have to break it to them. Well, we're going to do it, but it's also going to be manageable and fun. We're not going to try to keep it as something difficult. We're going to try to lead you into this very gently and with all of those things in my syllabus, though it really sets up the stage for a student to be in direct control of their success dropping one of those midterms.

Corey Placito: 12:33

So let's say somebody does poorly on a first exam and first of all, I don't like to look at exam scores or assessments in general as being good or bad. As far as the grades that are received, I look at them as contributing versus non-contributing. And let's say a student gets like a 50 or a 60 on an exam Okay, so it probably won't wind up on the refrigerator door or something like that but it contributes to a final grade and contributes more than like a 20 or a zero would towards that final grade, and I really kind of want to look at it in that light and also mention that well in my syllabus. I'll drop a low exam score. So if we had a bad first exam, we want to identify the things that went wrong, we want to be communicative, we want to talk to our instructor and our TAs, we want to make sure that we let someone know that we're proactive about our situation, and we could end up losing that exam score in a final average, and it sort of presents its own unique challenges at the end of the semester because even towards, let's say, the last month, there's still a lot of the grade in the control of the students. So all the students that maybe haven't performed as well as they would have hoped earlier in the semester and they'll come to me in a bit of a maybe panicked state, maybe there's a bit of anxiety there, I understand that. I'm empathetic towards that. But I can say to them you know you still have a lot of assessments ahead and, even though it seems strange because we're close to the end of the semester, you know we still have maybe another midterm and a final exam and some remaining homework assignments, maybe a last Python project that we're still going to be graded on and you could really change your situation.

Corey Placito: 14:09

But now we want to identify what the issues are. We want to talk and I always tell them like well, when you're studying, you know, check in with me, send me an email, let me know what you like, let me know what isn't going well. We want to keep our strengths as strengths and turn our weaknesses into strengths as well. I think it's also important to be approachable to students, be empathetic, right.

Corey Placito: 14:29

Math is difficult for many students and I also want to make sure that I'm passionate about what I'm doing in the classroom. You know, if I, if I'm not fully enamored with mathematics, how could I expect that to be infectious, right? Or I would expect that then to sort of take the place of it. So I try to make sure that students know I really enjoy the material, and I think some of that does rub off a little bit. I always tell my students you want to be the change you want to see in the world, that no one is going to take that first step for you. In the classroom, we can take that first step together, right.

Maggie Grady: 15:04

Are there any other teaching strategies that you want to tell our listeners about?

Corey Placito: 15:09

Oh, absolutely. I am a big fan of exit slips. I've always been a big fan of this strategy in the classroom and, for those of you that are maybe wondering, you know what is an exit slip. So let's say, for example, I'm doing some problem sets with students in lecture and I'm a very traditional lecturer. I like to be up at the blackboard. I don't do too much. That isn't sort of classical teaching.

Corey Placito: 15:36

But, with Exit Slips. Let's say I have four examples that I'd like to, you know, expose the students to. I'd like us to go through together. I could do three of them and save like a medium difficulty level problem and give that to students to work on at the end of class. So we'll say like, with the last five or 10 minutes of class lecture time, instead of me doing this one lecture that I removed from the middle of my example set, I will put it up on the board and I'll say all right, everybody, work on this.

Corey Placito: 16:02

If you're one of you know a lone wolf character like me, work on it by yourself. I get it. If you want to work in small groups, you can no more than three and they'll work in the small groups and there'll be some communication happening there. They'll bounce ideas off one another and they'll come to me with their solutions. And I got the red pen. I always have the red pen and if I give them the red check mark, then they're free to go. They could leave or they could help some other groups out, and then if they come up and it's not quite where we want it to be, I can give them some encouraging remarks what I like about their work, but I can also tell them maybe a hint, some suggestion as to where they want to go back and readdress things they could improve, and then they can go back and work on it a bit more and try to do that improve, and then they can go back and work on it a bit more and try to do that.

Corey Placito: 16:49

Now, the reason why I like exit slips so much is it really helps with consolidating material, right, and I tell my students all the time, when you work on homework matters a great deal towards consolidating material, and, true of anything in life, the idea is, I want to be an active participant in this right, so I think it's important not only for students to be, you know, taking lecture notes, obviously, but also trying to work on problems on their own, and it is my job, right, to make math look easy and like it's something that is something we can do, right, not impossible right? And I want to make sure, though, that they can recreate that same experience, that same pleasurable experience, on their own, and doing that right at the end of a lecture is the best time to build those neural pathways and those strong retrieval cues, which then, in turns, makes doing the homework easier, studying is easier, success on exams is easier. Exit slips, I think, are a great way to borrow part of your lecture time and reappropriate it in a bit more of a useful way.

Maggie Grady: 17:55

All right. So I hope that this conversation engaged and encouraged other people and our listeners to connect with their students, reach their students, read their students, be open and available to your students, and I really appreciate you sharing your insights and your techniques to our audiences and as well as myself.

Corey Placito: 18:15

I do also hope that everyone listening in you're able to take away something useful from these comments that I have from my own unique teaching experience. I hope you're able to take away something useful from the things that I've said.

Maggie Grady: 18:27

All right, so thank you for joining us today at the teaching table. Today we discussed innovative ways in which teaching approaches can help student success in mathematics with Professor Corey Placito. Be sure to connect with us online at buffalo. edu/catt that's c-a-t-t or email us at ubcatt@ buffalo. edu.