student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part B: Building Leadership Capacity - SET: Mathematics & Geospatial Sciences ART Report10.3 Background and Project FocusWhat courses were the subject of this project? Give total student numbersand breakdown how it was taught at the start of the project. Include anyother relevant information about the profile of the students and thecontext of delivery.The following courses which have large enrolments were considered:MATH2123This course was taught to 220 first year students in the first semester.The students in this course are from 5-6 different disciplines with varying TERscores depending on the discipline. This introduces considerable variation intheir mathematical abilities. The course is taught via the following approaches:face-to-face lectures, mathematics practice classes and Statistics computerlabs. The teaching materials for the course are posted on the Learning Hubvia blackboard so that during lectures students have time to listen and thenwrite the solutions to the problems listed in their weekly lecture notes,practice sheet or lab assignments.The course material is composed of 50% Mathematics and 50% Statistics.At the beginning of the project the mathematics component was assessedonly through a number of weblearn tests where students could repeat eachweblearn test to a maximum of 10 times until they achieved a score of 80%.Only then, are they permitted to attempt the next weblearn test. The statisticscomponent was assessed through a: 70% final exam (open book), a 10%computer assignment that would require the students to answer a setof questions that covered all topics in the course by using the Statisticalcomputer package, MINITAB. For each question on the computer assignment,students were asked to generate random data enabling each student to workwith a different data set to minimize plagiarism. They had one weblearn testweighted 10%, where students could do similar online practice quizzes asmany times that they wanted for practice but could only attempt the test once.The final 10% was allocated to being up-to-date with their designated weeklyproblems from their text book. These problems were ticked off (but notmarked) in their working note book every other week. To achieve the maximum10% students were required to have done the assigned problems every week.Doing so would enable them to have extensive practice on topics thatwere covered during that week.MATH2114This is a course taught to 220 first year students in the second semester.The students in this course are from one discipline with high TER scores,therefore their mathematical ability is almost uniform. The course is taughtvia the following approaches: face-to-face lectures, mathematics practiceclasses and statistics computer labs. The teaching materials for the course areposted on the Learning Hub via Blackboard. This group are taught in a lecturevenue where there are no writing facilities, therefore, the solutions to lecturenotes problems are also posted on the Learning Hub via Blackboard whichmeans during lectures students have time to listen more and write very little.Page 135