Category Archives: Professional

My teaching statement 2024-25

CURRICULUM, DELIVERY, ASSESSMENT

I have a long history of interest in new developments in delivery and assessment. As a PhD student I was involved in “calculus reform”, co-developing interactive computer algebra system (Mathematica) notebooks for student assignments. At the University of Auckland I was a member of the Academic Committee involved in formalizing learning outcomes and overall curriculum for the algorithms courses. I have developed lecture notes and syllabus from scratch for several courses. I taught sections of about 50 lecture courses at University of Auckland since 2002. At UMass (Math & Stat) since Fall 2019 I taught Mathematical Writing (4 times), Mathematical Modeling, and a graduate math course, designing my offerings from the ground up. In that department, class sections are all around 30 students, but at Auckland I frequently dealt with 300 students in one lecture. I prefer the smaller classes, but developed a lot of skill in dealing with the larger ones. Since switching to CS at UMass, I have twice taught a large sophomore probability course for CS majors, taught discrete math for non-majors, and am currently teaching an upper-level combinatorics course.

Video lectures. In 2018-19 I planned, performed and edited over 20 video lectures for an algorithms and data structures course (see https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkCWilson). I used them as part of a flipped classroom approach when teaching in the first half of 2019. Student responses showed that the lectures were popular (but my plan of replacing traditional lectures with them was less popular – students seem to see them as a useful extra especially for revision). They have received over 42000 views so far and are being used by people worldwide.

Undergraduate research. While in Auckland I supervised honors projects and summer research projects by 8 UoA students, along with REU-style projects by visiting undergraduates from Union College and IIT Kharagpur. This was not usual in the traditional research university department at UoA. I have since supervised two REU projects at UMass. Three of my summer students have gone on to complete a PhD in computer science or mathematics (Oxford, Queensland, Auckland) and four projects led directly to CS conference papers. The other students are all working in software-related industries. A main reason for the diversification of research interests over my career has been to find topics that are more accessible to students. In 2024-25 I am supervising 4 undergraduate minority students in CS through the ERSP.

Textbook. With M. Dinneen and G. Gimelfarb, I wrote in 2004 the 260-page textbook for COMPSCI220 at UoA (subsequently used also as a supplementary reference for several other COMPSCI and SOFTENG courses), “Introduction to Algorithms, Data Structures and Formal Languages” (Pearson NZ, ISBN 1-877258-79-2). Specifically, I chose the publisher and conducted all negotiations; organized the writing overall and edited and wrote two of the three main sections; contributed equally to the second, substantially revised, edition published in 2009; negotiated the reversion of rights from the publisher, so we could produce a free e-book version from 2013; maintained an online up-to-date list of errata and gave students incentives to report new errors.

Assessment. After much reflection on consistency of marking and grading, in 2007 I introduced multiple choice assessment for several courses, and this included overseeing development of multiple choice examination preparation software (written by then PhD-student Christof Lutteroth) which was used by at least 5 departmental colleagues. This frees time to allow teaching staff to concentrate on developing a high-quality question bank focused on learning objectives. I updated my own question bank every semester and shared it with UoA colleagues.
Automarker. With M.Dinneen I oversaw development from scratch of the “automarker” submission/feedback/marking system for programming assignments. In this major ongoing project, I played a major role in supervising the hired programmers, discussing required features; successfully applied with colleagues for two local Teaching Improvement Grants to develop the system; assisted several staff members to use the system, and was the main conduit for user feedback from faculty.
We gradually developed the system into a much more user-friendly and robust piece of software, which has been used in at least 6 courses so far, by at least 8 lecturing colleagues. We surveyed students on their user experience. The system gives feedback on common deficiencies, such as compiler errors, runtime errors, and resource inefficiency, allows students to refine their program by repeated submission, and can also be used for grading. It allows for personalized feedback and also whole-class competition via scoreboards, giving students a taste of the environment of a programming competition. The project started in 2008 and improvements are still being made, although I am no longer associated with it.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

The diversification of student motivations, backgrounds, and abilities that has taken place in the last few decades makes university teaching ever more challenging. Despite this, my key goals in teaching have not changed much since I began to teach. I see my role mainly as a coach, guiding and motivating students to carry out research themselves, and to set their own goals for performance. I believe in using technology and educational research to make teaching more efficient and effective. Below I expand on my main goals.

Help develop a research attitude in all students

Everything that is now smoothly presented in textbooks was at some time in the past newly discovered and exciting, at the forefront of research. In order to assimilate a concept, students must follow much the same process of discovery that previous researchers have done (albeit accelerated and shorn of most of the dead ends and false starts). Thus it is an obvious goal to develop the “research attitude” in students.

I aim to assist students in posing their own questions and answering them as far as practical. Of course, in lower level courses I will usually know the answer, but I see no great dividing line between beginners and professional researchers. There should be a difference in knowledge but not much of a difference in the basic methods. Practice at analysing complex problems, thinking logically and systematically, generating and testing hypotheses, and communicating one’s findings clearly to one’s peers are very useful for all students no matter what their future goals.

Unfortunately it is easy to slip into the habit of teaching (and learning) by lazily appealing to authority and memorization rather than adopting the correct attitude. The process of acquiring new knowledge is not smooth, as we all know, but too often new ideas are presented to students in a way that makes them appear soporifically inevitable. A quotation from Paul Halmos expresses how I want students to learn (and how I want to teach), and what I hope that they will themselves want after taking my class:

Don’t just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?

As far as practical teaching goes, I don’t go as far as running a class completely along Socratic lines – this has been tried by some but seems to be practical only for very small classes of very strong students. I do try to include in all assignments some element of discovery, where the answer to the question is not clear and there are many ways to approach it. I try in lectures to ask a lot of questions, and restrain myself from answering them too quickly (this is one of my hardest jobs as a lecturer).

Create a safe learning environment for all students

In the last few years, issues such as micro-aggressions and more overt discrimination have become increasingly recognized. I joined a discussion group at UMass on antiracist teaching practices, and am trying to learn more about the kinds of barriers to learning that someone with my background has not faced, but which do affect a substantial number of students. I aim for a relaxed classroom atmosphere. I use flexible grading practices that allow students to present their best “k out of n” assessments for the final grade. This reduces unhealthy anxiety over grades and students know they do not need to worry about missing an assignment owing to illness, for example. I aim to create a classroom space and community where all students participate. To model for students the fact that everyone makes mistakes and the aim is to learn from them, I intend to try live coding and other forms of presentation where I need to work out answers on the fly.

Provide opportunities for the best students to excel

Healthy competition is a powerful motivating force in learning, as I can attest from personal experience. The most able students naturally seek each other out in any class, and usually enjoy a friendly rivalry. It is my job to ensure that these instincts are expressed in a positive way. Students who delight in learning (and showing off their knowledge) make teaching really worthwhile for me — without them, I would do a competent job, but without any passion. I try to allow for a component in all assignments, tests, and even lectures in which the most able students can show what they can do. For example in CS courses involving programming I have often asked students to write a program to solve a particular problem – bonuses are achieved by beating the performance of my own answer to the question (which happens surprisingly often).

Ensure that every student achieves something worthwhile in the class

Motivations and abilities of students vary widely. Some students have a distinct lack of intensity in the way they approach their study, and some have poor study skills and inefficient learning styles (I certainly do not believe that all learning styles are equally valid in every course).

I aim to challenge them very early in the course to clarify their thinking about their learning as related to the course. This includes their performance goals, learning objectives and styles, and misconceptions of the subject material. I aim still to convince these less excited students of the benefits of working in research mode. But in any case, I want every student to learn at least one thing well, rather than have a confused mass of knowledge on a variety of disconnected topics. I try to get them to clarify what their learning goals actually are in the course and then achieve to the best of their ability.

Teaching theoretical/mathematical courses as I mostly have in my career so far poses some challenges. To quote Claude Chevalley, “mathematics is to some extent an exercise in rectitude of thought, of which it would be futile to disguise the austerity”. It is the instructor’s job to soften the “austerity” as much as possible. I try to communicate my enjoyment of the subject to the students, while maintaining good humour and not trivializing the difficulties they face.

In practical teaching terms, this means using simple but key motivating examples, being available for discussion (I often have an open door policy for office hours), balancing the competitive and nurturing impulses of me and my students, and trying very hard to practice what I preach at all times. All assignments, tests and exams have some routine, confidence-building component. I have worked hard on aligning my assessment more clearly to the learning objectives of the course, and on ensuring a good range of difficulty in questions. Depending on resources, I am considering trialing some sort of course delivery and assessment that encourages students to set their own goals, and take more responsibility for their own learning. My own experience as a student with a “Keller plan” course was positive.

Use technology and educational research to teach more efficiently and effectively

I have always been interested in using advances in technology or educational research to approach as closely as possible the ideal of personalized instruction by an experienced tutor for every student. Resource constraints have made this very difficult in the past. In recent years such ideas as clickers, flipped classrooms, and student peer review have been widely discussed. I have followed this discussion with interest but without being fully convinced, although I have tried a flipped classroom approach. I have still mostly concentrated on modelling good technique and habits of thought, communicated via traditional lectures supplemented by high quality lecture notes. I was an enthusiastic adopter of the PeerWise (developed at UoA and now used worldwide) multiple choice question system as a tool for student learning.

Formal listing of learning objectives and designing assessments that reflect these objectives (constructive alignment) can make a large improvement in many courses. I have been trying to upskill as a teacher by learning about this and intend to continue this process. I attend teaching-related local workshops every year.

Major career news

Since moving to the US and giving up my permanent academic position in NZ, I have been increasingly concerned with finding a more suitable job. This academic hiring season I applied to around 70 traditional positions, almost all in mathematics departments and computer science departments. This effort resulted in zero positive response from Math, and a few Zoom interviews with CS, one of which led to an on-campus interview day. However no offers were forthcoming. I put in a lot of work to present myself as a good candidate, which I believe I am. But it seems that the system is not efficient, or I am a much worse candidate than I think, or senior level hiring is really very different from the much more common junior hiring, or … (?)

In any case I felt the need to move forward, or at least sideways. I have, after several twists and turns, been appointed as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of Notices of the American Mathematical Society. This is an important community role that I hope to make my own as I build on the work of predecessors. It is roughly a half-time  position (at least that is what the pay says, and I hope the timesheets also reflect that, but I will spend as long as I need to do an excellent job). I already know it will be a lot of work and require me to deal with potentially conflicting opinions and interests. As an independent contractor with the AMS, I will have all the fun of self-employment tax and other IRS requirements.

In order to be working full time, I will also be moving at UMass Amherst from a visiting position in mathematics with no prospect of permanence to a (part-time) teaching faculty position in computer science with some prospect of permanence. The two new roles are not equally exciting (yet) but they are each important in their own way and I hope to contribute strongly in each. I will be teaching something new, namely probability for CS students, a course which I strongly but unsuccessfully advocated for at Auckland.

I will still be seriously looking for a more traditional professor role, but I will be able to focus on a much smaller number of job applications to places that seem a very good fit, assuming that this new situation is as acceptable a lower bound as I predict. Wish me luck!

 

If you can’t beat them …

… join them on Twitter, which I have now done (see profile). The sheer number of tweets makes it a little disorienting even if only following tens of people. However it is one more way to advertise one’s work and meet like-minded people, so on balance I will keep trying. Of course I have not yet run into any trolls.

A big change

After 20 years continuous work at the University of Auckland, I am moving with my family to Amherst, Massachusetts, USA (as described here). I will be in the Department of Math & Stat, and also Adjunct in Computer Science. Giving up a tenured position for a limited term visiting one  with no guarantee of anything beyond that may be considered foolhardy by many. Moving a family to the USA from our highly locally optimized life in Auckland, especially in the era of Trump, is also challenging. COVID-19 has made job hunting harder. So I am highly incentivized to work hard and make contacts. Wish me luck!

Review of Reassembling Scholarly Communications

I received the offer to review this book with some trepidation. Although active as an Open Access advocate, I have neither a scholarly background as a researcher and student of scholarly communications, nor a background in the humanities, which forms the disciplinary home for most contributors. I feared a long screed of very complicated terminology with little obvious relevance to those, such as myself, having a background in mathematics and natural sciences. Also, I have been suspicious of the motives of those who study ad nauseam issues such as open access without doing anything to change the world for the better.

In summary, I am glad that I accepted the offer. This book makes a distinct contribution, and its structure of short and very varied chapters contains a wealth of interesting content that should be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in open access and scholarly communications more generally. I cannot envisage many readers going through the entire book in detail – it is more suited to dipping into one chapter at a time, allowing serendipity to do its magic and breaking the reader out of the algorithmically enforced filter bubbles that threaten to isolate us all.

The editors explain their purpose clearly:

… pithy, shorter chapters that would serve as introductions to different perspectives, as gateways to alternative approaches 

 

coupled with a historical approach. They have succeeded admirably. The book has six sections, described under the headings of Colonial Influences, Epistemologies, Publics and Politics, Archives and Preservation, Infrastructures and Platforms, and Global Communities. These sections comprise 25 chapters each by a different authorial team. The introduction by the editors is very good, and contains an elegant and insightful description of the economic difficulties underlying public goods such as scholarly publications, by means of a parable about conference talks. There is an excellent glossary and list of abbreviations and acronyms, unfortunately essential for anyone reading about scholarly communications these days.

The variety of material is impressive and the writing overall clear and interesting, although every reader will find exceptions to that last claim. The historical approach is very useful and will extend the relevance of this book. Almost every chapter contains something new and interesting to me. The chapters that I found most valuable may give an idea of the breadth of topics covered: John Willinsky surveying the history of copyright, back to England in the late 17th century and the Statute of Anne in 1710; Martin Eve discussing the need for digital reading of research outputs when faced with a superabundance of possible articles and books to read, and the relation with open access and research evaluation; Aileen Fyfe on the Royal Society’s history as a publisher, and the little-known fact that for most of its 350 years the philosophy of supporting and subsidizing wide access predominated over the more recent approach of using journal sales to subsidize the Society’s other activities; Abel Packer and Dominique Babini surveying Latin American initiatives such as SciELO and Redalyc; Thomas Herve Mboa Nkoudou discussing the many challenges and yet the necessity of implementing open access in an African context. There are contributions discussing trends in peer review, politically sensitive archives, the history of public libraries, and the relevance of a medieval “how-to” manuscript to modern readers.

No book is perfect, and it is necessary to nitpick no matter how good the book is, in order to retain credibility as a reviewer. I was surprised to find some English errors even in the contributions by the editors (what does “comprise” really mean? what is the simple past tense of “to spring”?). I conjecture that the book took substantially longer to finish than expected (of course, Hofstadter’s Law shows that this must happen), which means that some chapters are, while still relevant, no longer at the cutting edge.

A strong theme of the promise and perils of universal open access to scholarly research runs through the volume. It is easily observed that decision-makers in wealthy countries appear to be obsessed with competition, credentials, and prestige, while in, for example, Latin America, the understanding that open access and open scholarship are justified by arguments from social justice and human rights is higher. This book should be particularly valuable for those in Europe and North America without much exposure to approaches in other parts of the world (and often without much interest in them) – give it as a gift to your relevant administrator today!

 

Journal flipping: another domino falls

I received this today from a mailing list. Some much-needed good news. I urge everyone in the research community related to this journal to get behind the new incarnation and cast the old one into the darkness. Based on previous experience with other journals, the publisher will try to pretend nothing has happened, stack the editorial board with retired people not strongly connected to the research area, and keep extracting as much money as possible. Don’t let them – kill the old journal by a decisive switch to the new!

Dear member of the combinatorics community,

Please pardon this mass e-mailing, and my apologies if you receive multiple copies.

 I am writing to inform you of an exciting development: a new journal, Combinatorial Theory, which is mathematician-owned, and fully open access, with no charges for authors or readers.

  I hope that you will regard this new journal as the successor to the Elsevier-owned Journal of Combinatorial Theory Ser. A (JCT A).  The majority of the JCT A editorial boards have recently notified Elsevier that they will not be renewing their contracts, and will resign after December 2020;  this includes all of the Editors-in-Chief whose contract does not extend past that date. Daily operations for the new journal will be run by interim editors until 2021, so that editors can fulfill any contractual obligations to Elsevier before joining the new journal.

  To aid the success of this venture, I encourage you to do the following.

1. Please do not submit any new papers to JCT A.  Papers already in the pipeline at JCT A will be processed as before.  Send new papers of the same scope and quality to Combinatorial Theory via email to combinatorial.theory@gmail.com.

2. If you are contacted by Elsevier to serve as an editor for JCT A, please do not accept, as this will hurt our efforts.

Sincerely,

Victor Reiner

Interim Editor, Combinatorial Theory

Free Journal Network

The Free Journal Network (previously described here) has now admitted 52 journals from an increasing variety of scholarly fields (although about half are still from mathematics). In order to go to the next level and obtain funding, I have registered FJN as a nonprofit corporation in Massachusetts, and am the first president. This involved learning a lot of new things. The Board of Directors is impressive – check them out.