INSTRUCTOR: Steven Hurder
OFFICE: 505 SEO
CONTACT: (312) 413-2154, hurder@uic.edu
OFFICE HOURS: 11 -12 MWF in 505 SEO, or by appointment

This two credit hour course assists teaching assistants in improving teaching skills, in addressing problems that may arise in the classroom, and offer insights and mentoring for a successful graduate career.

There will be no textbook for the course. Selected readings will be distributed, as linked below.

• Surving the First Day


• Eight Hot Tips for Lively Lectures by Barbara Wood, Professor, Communications, UIC


• Teaching Tips - Strategies, Research and Theory for College and University Teachers by Wilbert McKeachie, University of Michigan


• College Mathematics: Suggestions On How To Teach It by the Committee on the Teaching of Undergraduate Mathematics of the MAA, March 1979

Starting Graduate School and being a TA requires that you keep a sense of humor. The following may help:

• PHD Comics -- Piled Higher & Deeper: a grad student comic strip
  
  • How Grad School Is Just Like Kindergarden
  • Seminar Bingo
• xkcd -- A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language


• Lobachevsky -- Tom Leherer singing this classic
• New Math -- Another Tom Leherer classic
• Derivative Song -- More Tom Leherer
• The Professor's Song -- More Tom Leherer
• There is a Delta for Every Epsilon -- More Tom Leherer
• The CHEMISTRY element song -- Maybe his most famous song.
• The CHEMISTRY element song -- Lord Vordemort is cringing.

We quote from the University of Washington portfolio site:

"Developing a Teaching Portfolio provides instructors with a powerful means to document their teaching practices, philosophies, and performances. A living document, the teaching portfolio serves as a guidepost showing where a teacher has been and has still yet to go."

"Teaching portfolios can help you reflect on your teaching and examine the development of your teaching over time, and can also be used to represent your teaching to others as you apply for jobs, grants, awards, or promotion and tenure."

Here's how - read on.

Every Teaching Assistant & Instructor should have their own web site, to give contact information, office hours, and supplemental information for your students. As a graduate student in the MSCS Department, you automatically have a personal web site on the math server, at the address

http://www.math.uic.edu/~mscsusername

• Preparing a (Professional) Personal Website
• Primer on HTML and Web Sites
• Mac HTML Editors & Useful Web Stuff
• Windows HTML Editors & Useful Web Stuff

There are professional organizations you can join keep up with meetings, activities and the latest news in your field:

• American Mathematics Society (AMS)
  This is the premier mathematics organization in the US, and perhaps the oldest. Its main focus is on mathematics research and teaching at the university level.
• Mathematics Association of America (MAA)
  This is the prinicple organization for math undergraduates and educators, with a focus more on teaching at the college and university level.
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
  The mission of SIAM is to build cooperation between mathematics and the worlds of science and technology.
• American Statistical Association (ASA)
  The nation's leading professional association for statistics and statisticians.
• American Academy of Actuaries (AAA)
  The public policy, communications, and professionalism organization for all actuaries in the United States.

Note: As a graduate student in the MSCS Department, you are entitled to a free student membership in the AMS and SIAM.

There are lots of articles on the web about teaching mathematics and surviving graduate school. More links will be added.

• Teaching College-Level Science and Engineering
  This is the web site for the MIT version of Math 589. It includes videos on teaching - check them out!


• Khan Academy
  This is actually not about teaching per se, but its mission is to teach and suggests ideas. Read the Wiki entry on its mission here.

Here are just a few links to TeX and LaTeX resources, including links for complete installations of the full suite of TeX files and programs for PC's and laptops running either Windows or OS X software. For unix machines, it probably is already installed.

• MacTeX-2011 distribution - Complete TeXLive 2011 installation package for OS X.


• ProTeXt - Complete MiKTeX-based distribution for Windows. Read more about MikTeX Project.


• Reference sheets, online guides, and some standard TeX files
  Helpful links, plus some sample tex files that might help you in learning TeX and using it in your teaching.


• Preparing Your Curriculum Vitae
  Here are some sample vitas of former grad students - good for some ideas on starting your CV.


• Beamer Resources
  Look here for some sample beamer files, a guide, and web links.

Here are various interesting articles and resources for those contemplating a career in one of the branches of Mathematical Sciences.

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Mathematicians
• AMS Employment Site, EIMS & MathJobs Site
• MAA Career Site & MAA Math Classifieds
• SIAM Career Site & SIAM Job Board
• ASA Career Site
• Advice for New PhD's
  This is a list of links compiled by the AMS of interesting discussions on careers.
• AMS Annual Surveys - Jobs, Salaries and Theses
  The details are fascinating.
• AMS Data on the Profession
  Information on current trends in the mathematical sciences community.
• MSCS Doctoral Degrees conferred
  See a list of all the degrees granted by MSCS Department, and the theses topics and advisors since 1971.