UQ Maths Teaching Seminar

DOTS: Directed online tutorials for Statistics

Richard Wilson and Michael Bulmer

Thursday 28 August 2008 at 3:00pm (Altered time)

50-S201 (Hawken Eng)

All welcome.

Abstract:Teaching large service courses presents several challenges to successful learning. These arise firstly as constraints from the client group, which usually has as a key objective that the course covers as much advanced material as possible, often at the expense of introductory material. Secondly, students often perceive that the course is not "main stream" for them and may commence the course with general negativity and lack of motivation, especially if the course appears to have a much different focus to their other courses (as is the case if the course is quantitative in nature and their other courses are not). They therefore need to be convinced of its relevance and applicability to their own discipline.

Over the past four years, building on a paper-based tutorial system for service courses in applied statistics, we have been developing an online tutorial system to assist in providing relevant contexts for students, ownership of data through individual data sets and a streamlined structure to encourage students to complete work without overburdening them. Students receive their instructions and some help online prior to their tutorial. During their tutorial, they obtain their data, then carry out their analysis and and prepare their report under the guidance of a tutor, and submit their report online. Tutors mark and provide feedback online for these reports, then the students access their tutor's feedback online. This system will be described and demonstrated, and current developments discussed, with potential applications to other courses in mathematics.

http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/mathsed