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Guest post by Nicola Ablett, nablett@uwaterloo.ca

My name is Nicola Ablett, and I am a fourth year Data Science student here at the University of À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ. I have had the pleasure of being the Educational Research Assistant for Diana this term. Throughout the last couple of months I have been working on the Enhancing Assessment Practices project investigating data from core math courses, reading results from student surveys, and learning more about general policies that are on course syllabi. The project is wrapping up this year, and by giving a summary of my co-op term I hope to also share the highlights from the entirety of the project.

My term began with the final collection of syllabus data from the Fall 2024 term, to continue the work of previous co-op students. I kept track of general policies like statements on AI, late policies, 48h illness policies, and various flexible grading policies. We are seeing that a lot of syllabi are lacking this information, and hope to see outline become more of a hub for resources like this! I also investigated how weight was spread throughout different assessment types compared to previous years. We are seeing a return to exams and tests being the main assessment type worth marks, with assignments losing a significant amount since returning to in person classes.

I then moved on to the major task of my work term, which was looking into grade data from MATH 135-138, MATH235, MATH237, and STAT230-231. I looked at how student performance fluctuated throughout the term, seeing that there was a steady decline as the term went on in both averages and the number of students handing in assessments, indicating the need for continued or increased support for students throughout the term! I also found that there is a negative trend in final exam grades as students miss more assessments, which could be shared with students, so they are more inclined to use missed ones as practice. It was also noticed by looking at how students progress from MATH135 to MATH136 and from MATH137 to MATH138 that taking the beginning course (135/137) online may not be as good at preparing students for the upcoming course (136/138) as its in-person counterpart.