A Proposal for Good Actuarial Science Teaching

By Stefanos Orfanos

Expanding Horizons, June 2022

Imagine you are a newly admitted student in a top actuarial program in North America. You’ve always loved math and were very excited when you found out about actuarial science (AS) as a potential career choice. When the time comes to take classes for your major—i.e., classes to prepare you for these notoriously difficult exams—you realize you have a problem: your professor doesn’t seem to be good at teaching! There are no other sections to choose from and delaying taking the class will set you back a semester, since other more advanced classes depend on it. Your academic advisor has no solution, and your classmates are just as lost as you are. The professor seems nice, so you go to office hours and try to get questions resolved by email but to no avail. You end up passing the class but feeling frustrated and stressed out and nowhere near ready for the exam.

OK, that was a bit more dramatic than it needed to be. But we need to recognize a few facts that are unique to actuarial science teaching. First, failing an actuarial class has a much bigger impact on a student’s career prospects than just a bad grade. Students are expected to pass exams early enough to be offered actuarial internships over the summer, which lead to full-time jobs. Disrupt the timing of exams, and the demands of later classes often take priority over material that was taught the previous year. Getting those internships and job offers then becomes exceedingly hard. Second, many professors teaching actuarial science courses have expertise in mathematics or statistics but no experience in finance or insurance, while others are former actuaries with no training in higher education. Likewise for doctoral candidates or part-time instructors, who face additional constraints on their time because of research expectations or workload. Not to mention that the way enrollments are trending, we can’t afford to lose any promising students from the AS major.

At Georgia State University, we have developed a teacher training program for actuarial science and risk management, insurance and financial services (RMI) Ph.D. candidates that is supported by the S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education. Junior faculty and part-time instructors are also welcome to attend the biweekly seminars. The main goals of the program, besides exploring important topics of applied pedagogy, are to build a community of insurance educators, provide mentorship opportunities and assist in the compilation of teaching portfolios for those participants who will later seek faculty positions at other universities.

The rest of this article summarizes some of the topics covered in the program.

• We start with a discussion of how to frame the subject of risk and insurance. Educators should be able to articulate with enthusiasm and in sufficient detail the importance of the work of actuaries, underwriters and risk managers to individuals, companies and societies.
• A more practical conversation concerns the writing of a syllabus and how to set expectations for the semester. We look at the syllabus not just as a list of course policies and university requirements but as a document where the professor can explain the purpose of their course and their values in a learner-centered language.
• We also discuss how to create content for an actuarial science or insurance course. We consider multiple ways to deliver lectures and their pros and cons for various modalities (in-person, hybrid, online synchronous or asynchronous) and learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). We also familiarize participants with the technology used to create, edit and host class content. How to decide what content should be included in the course is also addressed.
• Another seminar is centered around active learning strategies, which range from pauses to reflect or simple questions to an inquiry-based learning or flipped classroom model. Once again, pros and cons for various modalities and learning styles are discussed. Several active learning strategies are demonstrated through examples, applets or case studies that are specific to insurance and actuarial science.
• Two seminars focus on motivating students to enhance learning and adding course components that aim at their future careers. While the first topic explores pedagogical theories regarding the importance of intrinsic motivation, growth mindset and self-reflection, the second involves concrete ideas about how to develop a range of competencies and skills that are indispensable to the insurance industry. Along the way, participants are also introduced to all actuarial, risk management and insurance organizations and credentials that their students (or they) could be pursuing.
• Two seminars are dedicated to assessment and grading rubrics. The emphasis of this module is to align the assessment tools to both the learning outcomes of the course and the set of skills and competencies targeted. It has been widely recognized, including by the Society of Actuaries in its latest curriculum innovations, that we can’t expect future insurance professionals to exhibit high emotional and adaptability quotients when they are tested exclusively in binary thinking.
• Another topic of interest is how to incorporate a discussion of professional ethics into the actuarial science class, plus the corollary issue of how to discourage or deal with violations of the academic honesty policy, such as plagiarism, cheating and so on. Especially for online courses, we offer ideas for cheat-proof exams that target higher cognitive skills than retrieval or basic application.
• The discussion then goes to the important topics of teaching with authority yet sensitivity to students’ needs, and to creating an inclusive learning environment. The final topic of thriving as an insurance educator consists of advice that helps newly minted faculty in insurance and actuarial science to stay passionate and continue to hone their own skills and expertise.

An integral part of these seminars is the assigned work that participants are asked to submit after each meeting. It includes preparing and recording of mini lectures; creating active learning activities, class projects, grading rubrics or cheat-proof exam questions that are specific to an actuarial course; and writing of essays. These materials can then be assembled in a portfolio that is used to explain the participants’ teaching philosophy.

There is no question about the transformative effect that inspirational actuarial science professors can have on their students’ learning and future career paths. Rather than leaving it up to luck, we have attempted to cultivate the qualities that make these professors great, and we are confident that the effort is worth it.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Stefanos Orfanos, FSA, CERA, is a clinical assistant professor and the director of the Undergraduate Actuarial Science Program at Georgia State University, as well as the co-editor of Expanding Horizons. Stefanos can be reached at sorfanos@gsu.edu.