Creative Teaching in Actuarial Science Diana Skrzydlo, ASA Outline - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Creative Teaching in Actuarial Science

Diana Skrzydlo, ASA

Outline

• Background
• Clickers (Student Response Systems)
• YouTube Video Assignments
• Takeaways

Background

• Innovative teaching techniques
• Used these techniques in multiple courses
• Creative ways to engage students
• Demonstrable student improvement

Clickers – Student Response Systems

• What are clickers?
• Active Learning
• Options: iClicker, TopHat, Kahoot, Socrative,

PollEverywhere, Acadly, etc

Clickers – Benefits

• Students try out techniques immediately
• Feedback on student understanding
• Collect data for examples
• Increase student engagement
• NOT a means to simply increase attendance

Clickers – Drawbacks and Mitigation

Drawbacks Possible Solutions Creating questions Question banks available Time asking questions in class Replace some examples Administrative work It gets easier! Cost to students Free options

Clickers – Best Practices

• Assigning grades
• Allowing absences
• Administrative overhead

Clickers – Survey Results

42.86 26.82 11.53 16.29 2.51 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Has helped me attend class and participate Has helped me learn the material and I enjoy them. Has helped me learn the material, but I do not enjoy them. Has not been beneficial to me and I do not feel like we need iClickers No opinion Relative Frequency (%)

Using iClickers in class...

69.92 15.79 14.29 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Yes No No Opinion

Relative Frequency (%)

Do you feel that placing a weight of 5% towards your final grade was fair?

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Final Exam Grade Clicker Grade

Clickers – Impact on Grades

YouTube Video Assignments

• Learning through Teaching
• Group project
• Curated list made available
• Used in many courses:
• Probability
• Life Contingencies
• Stochastic Processes

YouTube Video Assignments – E xamples

EXAMPLE 1

Harry Potter Petrification Insurance

EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 3

Common Shock Model for Two Lives Markov Chain for paying attention in class

And one more for good luck!

YouTube Video Assignments – Grading

• Correctness / Accuracy
• Creativity / Passion
• Communication / Quality

YouTube Video Assignments – Usage

• Optional
• Used to review material
• Inspiring the next term

Takeaways

• Don’t be afraid to try things
• Students achieve remarkable things when given the chance
• Document, Improve, Repeat
• Share your successes