Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Many elite universities including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Penn, Princeton and Carnegie Mellon are moving aggressively online, with online activity at the core of how these schools envision their futures. All UC campuses (including UCD) offer a smattering of online courses, and the UC-wide Online Instructional Pilot Project (OIPP) is supporting over two dozen courses for transitioning to online versions (including five at UCD, one of which is mine). Unfortunately the attitude of many faculty colleagues towards online (or blended) instruction is disinterest at best and hostility at worst. I will argue that faculty who continue to ignore the opportunity for strategic use of digital and virtual technology in instruction will be doing so at their peril. My formal presentation will be divided into four parts. First I will present an overview of the digital and virtual university, the need for a coherent, integrated, and strategic framework, and the state of online instruction (including perspectives on the courses offered through Coursera at Stanford with 300,000+ students). Second, I will give an overview of a range of models for video and virtual delivery of instructional content, several of which I use in my own courses at UCD including the course destined for online delivery. Third, I will discuss video-recorded micro-lectures for creating thematic playlists, specific tutorials and enrichment in instruction including importance, technical details and examples. Finally, I will outline the need for and importance of video capture and posting of department seminars, workshops and conferences as part of a broader digital strategy at UCD concerned with teaching, research and outreach. Open discussion will follow.