The National Students Survey, or the NSS in short, is now into the tenth year, and it remains as controversial as ever. In 2005, institutions and departments who did not subscribe to it simply ignored it, or if pushed, would regally declare that it was simply a point-scoring instrument of little academic consequence. Fast forward to 2015, and the NSS has become a real monster in our midst. You can only ignore it at your peril, even if you do not subscribe to its academic efficacy. Up and down the country, university leaders are falling over each other trying to ensure that their institutions at least get favourable NSS scores. And woe betide the academic department which chooses to regard the NSS as inconsequential.

The NSS is an instrument for measuring student satisfaction. It achieves this by requesting near-graduates to report on their experiences in their undergraduate programmes (Robinson & Sykes, (2014). Now any reasonable person would think that is a good idea. After all, as academics we all depend on student feedback to improve our own teaching. The downside is that this is all very public, with all the NSS results being published on a public league table. If your institution, and your department score very highly, that is good enough.  Your vice chancellor will be happy, and will proudly announce the quality of your institution’s teaching on the public-facing institutional web-site, and, for good measure, you might even receive a bonus. If, however, you are far down the NSS league table, then all hell breaks loose. Yorke, Orr and Blair (2013) put it much better – having low NSS scores is like being hit by the perfect storm. Everything goes up into the air. Your teaching suddenly falls under public scrutiny. The vice chancellor will immediately place your departmental teaching under a magnifying glass, and, as so often happens, in no time, officious academic services staff will be scrutinising your departmental teaching activities, and making recommendations which you dare not disagree with.

Why all this concern, you might ask. Because it matters for student recruitment, and for institutional credibility.  The NSS league table serves to inform the prospective student of how good your department is in comparison to your competitors. Not only that, the NSS scores will find their way into the government-mandated key information sets (KIS). These are the summary statements about the quality of your undergraduate programmes that now appear as a matter of legal requirement alongside your advertisement for the undergraduate programmes offered by your department. Whilst home students may be somewhat immune from NSS scores, this is not so with international students upon whom we now depend for a significant proportion of university income. As Gordon Slaven, head of higher education at the British Council, which promotes UK education, says “How current students present their life on campus online now plays a vital role in how prospective students will view and make a decision on where they should study.” And, for potential students in distant lands, the NSS is the definitive window into our institutional and departmental teaching.

But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom at all. Paul Ramsden (2007), the author of the NSS survey has this to say: The NSS is a “window into how our design for learning are experienced by students and the survey should lead to practical changes to improve quality.” He goes on to suggest that the most important determinants of the student experience are teachers’  “clarity of explanations” and their “ability and willingness to understand student difficulties.” Indeed some departments at the receiving end of the NSS storm have taken aboard his advice with remarkable success. For instance, Robinson and Sykes (2014) report how they successfully enlisted the help of current students to interpret the data from the students’ emic perspective and to suggest ideas for improving the curriculum based on their analysis of the results. Hence, in this case, the NSS has helped to bring together students and academic staff into a working partnership aimed at improving learning and teaching within their departments. Indeed, as Ramsden (2007) points out, students are stakeholders in the delivery of learning, and they should contribute to the improvement of departmental learning environments.

Canning (2015) suggests that as academics, it is mandatory that we improve the learning environment for our students. For instance, in the 2014 NSS, 86% of the surveyed students responded positively to Question 22 of the NSS survey: ‘Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course.’ Canning counters that this leaves over 50,000 students graduating from our universities after 3 or 4 years with unsatisfactory student experiences.

A lot of studies have been conducted on how the student experience can be improved. However, as Gibbs (2010) concludes in his studies on quality dimensions in higher education teaching, all these studies boil down to one thing – the effectiveness of institutions in delivering quality teaching depends primarily on the development and sustenance of an institutional ethos devoted to student success.  And this is not necessarily expensive, as simply upholding teaching values and showing students that we care can bring about immense improvements in the quality of teaching (Gibbs, Knapper & Picinnin, 2009).  As commercial organisations have learnt to accept all along: quality is in the eye of the beholder – and for us in higher education the primary beholder is our current student.

References

Canning, J. (2015). Half a million unsatisfied graduates? Increasing scrutiny of National Student Survey’s ‘overall’ question. Educational Developments, 16(3)

Gibbs, G. (2010). Dimensions of quality. York: Higher Education Academy.

Gibbs, G., Knapper, C., & Picinnin, S. (2009). Departmental Leadership of Teaching in Research-Intensive Environments – Final Report. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Available: http://goo.gl/8u0fpc [Retrieved 28 Oct, 2015.]

Ramsden, P. (2007). „Inspiring tomorrow‟ s students‟. Address to the Higher Education Academy Annual Conference, July 2. Harrogate.

Robinson, L., & Sykes, A. (2014). Listening to Students’ Views on NSS Data for Quality Enhancement. Health and Social Care Education, 3(1), 35-40.

Yorke, M., Orr, S., & Blair, B. (2014). Hit by a perfect storm? Art & Design in the National Student Survey. Studies in Higher Education, 39(10), 1788-1810.

Background:

The idea of mathematics support for undergraduate students took off in the UK in the early 1990’s, and today it is now firmly established in most universities (Lawson, 2012). The main reason leading to the provision of mathematical support was the perception that students entering university from the school system lacked the necessary depth of mathematics necessary for them to undertake numerate programmes like mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences.

Today, mathematical support has progressed from being just a remedial tool. Instead, the main objective of mathematical support is now being seen as assisting students to achieve their full potential. This means that in addition to supporting students who would otherwise fail to gain sufficient mathematics skills to pass and progress in their degree programmes, mathematical support programmes also seek to enable students with adequate mathematical skills to excel in their studies.  Whilst the exact form of support offered varies from student to student, the main objective is the same, namely building students’ confidence in mathematics so as to enable them to be more successful in the study of their primary discipline (Lawson, 2012).

Mode of Operation, Location and Branding

The main form of support is typically in the form of a drop-in service, usually located in an easily accessible student study space. This may be typically in a library, or campus-based cafeterias where students are likely to meet informally in between formal lectures to study, eat and drink, or to chill out. Wherever a drop-in service is provided, it is necessary to ensure that it is located in a physically attractive, welcoming environment. It should also be clearly sign-posted, possibly with a large clear banner, so that it clearly stands out. It is also essential that any signage or advertising associated with the service should be about improvement for all, as opposed to being a remedial service for failing students (Lawson, 2012). This is to prevent the potential to embarrass and turn off potential attendees.

Tutor Preparations for a Drop-in Session

Like everything else, the key to a successful drop-in session is adequate preparation. This includes gaining familiarity with the nature of potential queries that students are likely to bring, as well as gaining an understanding of the nature and background of potential attendees.

Know the Material

Within engineering, the main source of queries may stem from their engineering mathematics studies. It is therefore necessary to have some grasp of the material they are covering. Engineering departments often give their mathematics support tutors access to the student course materials. In forward-looking departments, mathematics support tutors are an integral part of the department’s mathematics provision and they routinely collaborate with lecturers in reviewing the course material, discussing potential problem areas for students, and redrafting course notes and coursework in the light of student feedback. In fact, drop-in sessions can serve as an important just-in-time feedback channel for an engineering mathematics programme.

Know the Range of Tutor Expertise Available

It is not possible to be familiar with all the aspects of mathematics that students may seek help on. This is because you may have done a similar mathematics course several years before, and your research may be in an area quite distant from undergraduate mathematics topics. Hence, you should have some familiarity with the individual expertise of the other tutors working with you in the drop-in sessions. For instance, someone doing a PhD in an area of fluid dynamics may have expertise in partial differential equations, whilst someone from electrical engineering may have day-to-day familiarity with vector calculus. Others may have expertise in mathematical modelling software such as Matlab or Excel. Awareness of who has what sort of skills may be important when you get stuck on some problem and need to refer the student.

Forewarned is forearmed

It will be helpful if you come to the drop-in session with some idea of the likely queries students will bring. Someone who has spent some time as a mathematics support tutors will have a clear idea of the types of questions students bring on each topic. If you have recently taken up the role, it is important that you speak with more experienced colleagues to find out the main issues students typically bring to the drop-in sessions. As the saying goes – forewarned is forearmed.

Conducting Yourself during the Drop-in Session

Be welcoming

Most students find it quite challenging to gather the courage to come to the drop-in session for help. Your demeanour is therefore important in encouraging students to come.  Welcome students when they come up to you, and make them feel valued. Small things like introducing yourself, and offering the student a seat go a long way towards building rapport between yourself and the student, which is a key ingredient for the success of a drop-in session.

Listen to the student first before proposing an appropriate solution

In most respects, a drop-in session is similar to a visit to the doctor. Patients come in to the doctor’s surgery exhibiting various symptoms. The doctor then performs a diagnostic procedure, which generally includes obtaining further information about the patient’s symptoms, previous state of health, living conditions, and so forth.  Similarly, when a student brings a problem, it may be pointing to a particular area that the student is struggling with. For instance a student may say to you, “I can’t solve this ordinary differential problem, can you help me.”  In this case it is quite tempting to rush in and provide a solution for the problem in question. But this doesn’t help the student much. Rather, you need to establish why the student is having that problem.  Is it because there is some underlying background material that the student needs to master first, is it because the student has failed to understand the theory surrounding the problem, or is it simply that the student is finding only this particular problem problematic.

For each of the scenarios presented by the student you need to adopt an appropriate approach. This may be to refer the student to a particular section in previous lectures, or it may be asking the student to attempt a similar, but more approachable problem. In each case, focus on understanding the underlying reasons why the student is having the problems and helping the student to fix those areas. Hence, a single visit to the drop-in session may end up revealing to the student key areas of underlying mathematics that should be mastered first.

Be prepared to spend time with the student

According to Lawson (2012) students value the opportunity for one-to-one interaction with a tutor who is prepared to spend time with them. In a drop-in session always be prepared to go back as far as is necessary to enable students to build on from what they know already. This helps to connect the topic they are having difficulties with to previous work, which, in turn, helps to grow their confidence and understanding.

Be patient and considerate

According to findings from the UK Mathematics Learning Support Centre, most students who come for support in mathematics need basic tuition. You need to explain to them clearly and slowly, and to reassure them at all times that they are not dumb. Endeavour not to demean the students in any way. For instance, refrain from making statements like, “You should have covered this in school!” In addition refrain from humour as this may be taken badly and only end up demotivating the student (Croft et al, 2011).

Don’t just give answers: Engage in a dialogue with the student

Your role as a tutor is to guide the student to master the techniques to solve mathematics problems on their own. Hence, avoid giving the answer to the student as much as possible. Instead, through appropriate questions and hints, guide the students to solve the problems themselves.  This may even involve getting the student to refer to their lecture notes to find explanations about a particular method (Croft et al, 2011). This is a form of one-on-one tutoring, and it is instructive to adopt techniques that have been found to be effective in student tutoring. See, for example, my blog on organising effective tutorial workshops for Engineering Mathematics.

Help students to develop a long-term strategy

Some students may come with one-off problems and they go away satisfied. However, for most students you need to impress upon them the need to develop a long term strategy to overcome their problems (Croft et al, 2011). You can help them to identify areas that they need to work on, and to assist them in drawing up a schedule of work. Wherever possible, encourage them to start some work during the drop-in session, and invite them back after a few days to tell you how they are getting on.

When you get stuck on a problem

As I said before, it is impossible to know everything that the students may bring to the drop-in session. In these instances, be upfront with the students and let them know. If there are other colleagues around, refer them to the student. Where this is not possible, make a note of the problem and ask the student to come back some other day after you have found out.

Record keeping

The effectiveness of a drop-in session can be improved through record-keeping. For instance, keeping track of attendance will ensure appropriate allocation of tutors in subsequent years as attendance is not uniform throughout the year, but is dependent on the particular areas that the students are studying at any given point in time. In addition, a record of the queries brought by students will help to improve lectures and tutorial workshops so as to alleviate these problems.

Acknowledgement

This material is based on the work by the National HE STEM Programme sigma   that produced a series of practice guides providing information for staff involved in providing mathematics support.

References

Lawson, Duncan. (2012) Setting up a Math Support Centre. Published by The National HE STEM Programme, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK. Available:  http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Setting-up-a-Maths-Support-Centre.pdf (Accessed 22 Oct 2015).

Croft, A. C., Gillard, J. W., Grove, M. J., Kyle, J., Owen, A., Samuels, P. C., & Wilson, R. H. (2011). Tutoring in a Mathematics Support Centre, a Guide for Postgraduate Students. Published by The National HE STEM Programme, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK. Available http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/46836-Tutoring-in-MSC-Web.pdf. (Accessed 22 Oct 2015).

The LTSN Maths TEAM Project. (2003) Maths support for students. The UK Mathematics Learning Support Centre. Available: http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/student_support.pdf (Accessed 22 Oct 2015).

Imagine that you have applied to study engineering at one of the top UK universities. You turn up at the beginning of Freshers Week, ready to embark on your journey towards becoming an engineer. As in all Freshers Week preparations, the university has sent you a detailed itinerary for the week, and your first meeting is with your Learning Advisor. This is someone like the present day personal tutor, but unlike today’s personal tutor, this Learning Advisor will partner with you throughout your academic journey at this top university.

You show up promptly at the Learning Advisor’s office at 9:00 in the morning. After exchanging pleasantries, and with a hot cup of coffee in your hands, you are soon engrossed in discussing your study plans. It’s not like today’s asymmetrical teacher-student communication. This is a discussion of equals, focussing on the same objective, namely to create the best possible learning environment for you. It’s a discussion and meeting together of mature and interested minds.

Your Learning Advisor enquires about your specific passions in your desire to study engineering, your previous experiences in industry, if any, and your specific competences in areas like Physics and Mathematics. She sits down with you in front of a large computer touchscreen on which there are the various course modules that you will engage with in your forthcoming academic career. Pretty soon, by moving modules around, you create your own personalised study programme. Not only that, you both sit down to watch comments and discussions by students already on the programme, as well as recently graduated students who are already in industry. This helps to guide your choices, and soon you are working on how exactly you are going to be spending your time in the next few weeks of term.

Together with your Learning Advisor, you complete a quick questionnaire to identify your particular learning style, and based on this, the computer system produces a draft Personalised Learning Plan for you. This comprises the specific lectures that you will attend, the tutorial workshops that are relevant to you, as well as the additional support you need, like postgraduate tutoring support, as well as specific seminars and workshops in which you will work in small groups with other students to cover areas that are of specific concern to you. Soon, you have a detailed week-by-week timetable that optimises your access to university learning resources. This includes optimising your personal life with lecture and workshop attendance, as well as a schedule for self-directed online learning, peer-to-peer student activities, as well as the all-important academic staff contact points.

Soon you turn to discussing your assessment schedule. You are pleasantly surprised that you will not be constrained to sit exams at the end of the year in some large scary hall, alongside hundreds of other students. Rather, there is a bouquet of assessments available for you, and some are optional. Throughout your studies you can take formative assessments available online, in the form of quizzes, or you can take paper-based assessments that require submission to a named academic staff member. For the summative assessments, you can choose to sit them as and when you are ready, and, as in all assessments, these are promptly marked, and an academic sits down with you to give you one-on-one feedback on your performance, and on your future progress.

You enquire when you will be able to complete your degree programme. Your Learning Advisor replies that this is down to you, and the progress that you make. You can choose to work alongside your studies, and you can take time off to spend time in industry pursuing specific projects that are of interest to you. In fact, your time and effort in industry is also assessed and contributes to your progression. If you wish, you can also embark on research in one of the many research groups within the university. In fact, you could embark on doctoral and master level research studies simultaneously with your undergraduate programme. Far-fetched? No, after all, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame was already taking graduate level courses in computing prior to enrolling for undergraduate studies at Harvard.

How does this vision for tomorrow compare to the current undergraduate scenario? Vastly futuristic, you would think, until it dawns on you that present-day enrollment and study procedures have remained remarkably unchanged despite advances in technology. In fact, if a 1950’s student turned up to a typical university campus, he or she would not be too lost, apart from the fact that where before there was loads of paperwork to read and complete, nowadays most university work is mediated via computer technology. Just as in the in the 1950’s , students entering an undergraduate programme today typically sign up for the same introductory courses, attend the same lectures and tutorial workshop sessions, do the same coursework, submit it by the same deadline, sit the same exams at the same time, and wait to progress to the next stage at the same time.

Which leaves you wondering: are our undergraduate learning and teaching procedures still fit for purpose? Surely, given the advent of Internet technologies, and advances in learning technologies, there must be a better way to personalise our learning experiences.

If you are an Engineering academic, most of your undergraduate students tend to be students proceeding directly from high school, with only a minuscule number coming into university from work. However, at master level this is the complete opposite. A sizeable proportion of your students are likely to hold first degrees and they usually have a considerable number of years of industrial experience.  In addition, your class may comprise a sizeable number of students coming from educational and career backgrounds outside your subject area.  These are typically prospective career changers who need to use the master level education and knowledge as a platform to launch themselves into a different career pathway.  It is also not uncommon to see mid-level managers amongst your students who are taking the master level programme to broaden their view of the technological field within which they are working.  In my own career I can count several instances where my classes have included senior-level managers with company-wide responsibilities for technical operations and research and development.

Master Level Students – A Different Breed from Undergraduate Students

Master level students are quite different from the typical undergraduate students, and they also have a different epistemological view of knowledge from the typical academic. For instance, in academia we tend to value propositional knowledge, i.e. theoretical knowledge, for its own sake. In contrast, students from industry are used to learning and applying knowledge to their own work situations. Unlike us, academics, they tend to place more value on procedural knowledge, i.e. that kind of knowledge which imparts skills to do something. In addition, such people often learn and enact their knowledge through team-work. This contrasts sharply with the stereotypical view of academic practice as an individual pursuit.

At undergraduate level, students have a tendency to regard your lecture notes as the divine truth in your subject area.  This is not so at masters level. Given the diverse experience and expertise amongst your master level students, you should expect your students to challenge and debate your teaching content, even if you are drawing from the latest research on the topic. In my own teaching I can easily remember the instances when someone has pointed out in class: “We tried that, it doesn’t work.” Or, worse still, “I know the textbooks say so, but in industry things are not like that.” If you have not anticipated this, you can freeze in confusion, and the whole lecture, and your own credibility as well as the credibility of the programme can go downhill from that point. It is therefore not uncommon to witness master level programmes that start off with a high number of students, and then fizzling out within a few years as word goes round amongst prospective students. How then can you make your lectures worthwhile?

The Course Module as a Platform for Collaborative Analysis and Debate

The most important thing you can do is to recognise that at master level, a course module is not just a vehicle for imparting facts and figures to the class. Instead, view your course module as a platform for enabling the class to share and debate a specific portion of technical knowledge in a supportive environment. Make it a place where students with an industrial background can reflect and share their practice in the light of the propositional knowledge emanating from academia.

Consider using your module as a platform to question research-based academic knowledge in the light of your students’ practical experiences. To spice up things, endeavour to bring in industrial expertise to contribute to debates on specific topics.  Bring in experts from both established enterprises and start-ups, and mix these into your class. Your job then, as a lecturer, is to spark a conversation, possibly through an appropriate industry-focussed problem question, and to coordinate and conduct the class discussions in such a way that everyone benefits.

The Course Module as a Vehicle for Engaging with Industry

At Master level your role as lecturer seizes to be that of an “imparter of knowledge”, and becomes one of organising and coordinating appropriate learning environments to enable students to actively engage in their own learning in a collaborative manner.  Going by today’s terminology, such learning is a form of “active learning” whereby students are encouraged to learn by using their initial knowledge to analyse and synthesise authentic solutions, and then contributing to the existing knowledge base through reflecting and evaluating on their solutions.

In some universities, master level programmes are seen as vehicles for engaging with industry.  Practitioners come in and share their knowledge with academics and students, and in turn, practitioners go away with a more illuminated view of their practice. This inevitably leads to closer collaboration between universities and industry, and it is not a coincidence that universities with strong master level programmes in engineering often have very strong linkages with industry. And this relationship is symbiotic, and, is one of the key reason why universities often serve as catalysts and incubators for technological developments within their localities.

Many a time I have witnessed the anguish of colleagues as they recount how some student has dressed them down in their “own class”. In most universities, a sizeable number of good students often progress directly to masters. Others are returning to higher education after several years of practice in industry.  Such students have learnt to be independent thinkers and learners. They have developed a thirst for knowledge, and have acquired the important ability to read and study independently. These students view lectures as opportunities for discussion, and their inquisitive minds have been primed to question and challenge each facet of knowledge presented to them.  Such students thrive best in an environment where they are allowed to discuss material amongst themselves, and where they are challenged to apply the knowledge that they have gained to realistic problems.  The lecture materials that you give them are only one amongst several sources of knowledge they are familiar with.

You will not last long if you stick to the traditional lecture method. Instead, make it be known to your class that you expect them to do preparatory reading before coming to class. You can help them to do so by turning your lecture outcomes into questions that the students have to find answers to. They can get these answers from your lecture material and from any other resources available to them. Let the lecture become a venue for students to share the learning they have acquired prior to the lecture. In the modern day this form of teaching is called the “flipped lecture method”, but believe you me, over the years it has been the staple for good master level teaching.

Some enterprising lecturers have even moved on from lectures to seminar-style teaching.  For each topic under discussion, they invite fellow colleagues and PhD students to participate in the lecture. These individuals sit with the students, and share their own experiences.  This works particularly well if you pose research-based problems. Students work together, and with the invited subject experts, to find solutions to current research problems. In most universities, PhD students are often required to attend master level courses that are relevant to their research. Hence, whilst their presence helps to motivate your master level students, in turn, they benefit by attending your lectures and grappling with problems that they are facing in their own research. By adopting this approach, you reinforce to your master level students that learning doesn’t only take place in the lecture room, and that learning is not an individual activity, but an activity best done in collaboration with others, including people who are not necessarily part of their class. In addition, your master level students will quickly realise the futility of not reading ahead and preparing for lectures. And critically, from a pedagogic perspective, adopting an inclusive collaborative approach in your teaching quickly immerses your master level students into the research community within your department.

I still remember the day when, as a junior academic, my then Head of Department invited me to teach on a master level course in telecommunications. I was in his office, and I literally froze at the prospect of taking on such a daunting enterprise. My first reaction was to politely refuse the offer, but now, fifteen year later, I can honestly say that I am glad that he politely forced me to move into master level teaching. Every year many junior academics receive this invitation. Over the years, I have even had the opportunity to extend this kind of invitation to fellow colleagues. Whilst some have leapt with joy at such a prospect, the majority, I am afraid to say, have experienced the same emotional turbulence and uncertainty that I went through fifteen years ago.

Be Aware of Your Own Fears and Insecurities and Deal with Them

Why is there so much fear in moving from undergraduate teaching to master level teaching? There are several reasons, but I believe that one of the key reason is the perceived balance of power between the teacher and the students. Within  undergraduate courses, you are the master of your own teaching, and the students acknowledge this. Taking a leaf from the literature on the Mafia, at undergraduate level you are the Godfather, the Don of your subject area. You can opt for an autocratic, didactic approach to teaching, or you can even adopt a benevolent, collaborative teaching approach, but still, at the end of the day, you are still the boss, and this can be quite reassuring for most of us.

At master level, this is not the case. Knowledge and expertise are definitely not the preserve of the teacher alone. As a teacher, you are now one person in a class of equals, and your teaching can not be anything but collaborative and inquiry based. This means that you have to bring yourself to the level of your students. This is what teaching at university level should be like. However, it’s not easy to do so, as it leaves you potentially vulnerable to your students.

However, remember that learning is at its best when vulnerable people share their experiences to build up each other. Therefore relax, and take time to find out your shortcomings. Is it because you feel you do not have adequate knowledge to teach in the area? Mostly our teaching is often at variance with our research expertise, even at master level. If this is the case, start building up your knowledge in the subject area. After all, as the saying goes, we learn best through teaching others.

Is it that you feel that you lack relevant industrial practice, and fear being exposed in class? If this is so, don’t panic, after all, most academics never get the opportunity to work in industry. Identify industry practitioners to co-teach with you in some of the topics. In addition, tap into the industrial expertise of your students. In either case, encourage the students to build links between theory, as taught in the class, with practice, as highlighted by the practitioners.

Master Level Teaching Means Collaborative Learning

At undergraduate level, the typical Engineering academic can choose to ignore best practice in learning and teaching, and stick to the age-old didactic teaching typified by a one-way transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the learner. This is not so at master level. At this level the teacher seizes to be the primary source of knowledge. The teacher’s main role is now to facilitate collaborative learning amongst learners whose knowledge in the subject area may be at par with the teacher’s.

At master’s level, teaching is like going on a journey of exploration with the whole class. No one knows everything, and there may be surprises along the way, and the whole class, including the teacher, are all on a learning journey, and they have to collaborate. As a teacher, you are no longer the Don, but an equal amongst equals. And in this case, your main role is to ensure that noone gets left behind.

Resist the Temptation to Teach Alone

If you stick to teaching alone you can only wear yourself out. Worse still,  your lectures will soon become an ordeal to your students, rather than something to look forward to. Instead, make plans for others to contribute to your lectures. Tap into the experience of your students, particularly those who have been working in areas relevant to your subject areas. Ask them to lead discussions, and to propose problem questions based on their practice. Remember, at master level you are now a facilitator of learning, and not a teaching don.

In my own experience, some student-led discussion classes have turned out to be very fruitful for both students and the organisations that they work for. They have helped to provide solutions to industry problems. In addition, they have helped to open up the industry to various students. For example, career changers get to know more about the industry they are aspiring to get into.  Even those who are in the industry get to know of other areas and organisations within their industry. Also, such discussion classes have also contributed immensely to my knowledge of the industry. Hence, by facilitating discussion classes you can turn your class into a platform whereby students can acquire industry knowledge and build networks that they can use to further their own careers.

Use You Teaching to Create Connections

Use your teaching to create strong linkages between your class and your department’s research activities, and between your class and the industry that is relevant to your teaching.  Bring in your PhD students to sit in with your master level students and to participate in class discussions. Identify relevant research seminars for your students, and encourage them to attend. This helps to give your students insights into the research aspect of the university. Some, including myself, have gone on into PhD studies and into  academic careers as a result of these linkages between teaching and research.

As for industry relationships, bring in practitioners from industry.  In addition to bringing in the “big names” in the industry, don’t leave out early stage practitioners who are at the forefront of technological innovation in their practice. This helps to create purpose and awareness in your classes, and can serve as a route to collaborative projects between your department and industry.

Most Importantly, Be Enthusiastic

Remember the expression: “Enthusiasm is infectious”. There is nothing that can motivate students more than the teacher’s own enthusiasm.  Be enthusiastic about your own subject area. Be up to date and relevant in it, and talk about it to the students. Bring in current papers that are relevant to your own course module, and rather than presenting facts as gospel truth, use research to argue against research. When you discuss current technological practice, take the students on a historical journey through the arguments and counter-arguments that led to the present state of affairs. Drop in the names of the key players, and let students see the personalities and personal research dispositions of the people who built up the knowledge base for your course module.

Above all, be enthusiastic about your students’ learning. Take an active interest in their learning, including performance in assessments, and performance in individual and group class activities.  Explore with your students their thought processes, and let them see the errors of their ways. Guide them to learn from their mistakes, and let them know that a reflective approach to dealing with errors and mistakes is one of the most powerful ways to learn.

Take a personal interest in your students’ welfare. For instance, follow up on absences, and direct students to the appropriate student well-being personnel within your department and faculty.

Above all, show that you care about your students’ own individual academic development.

The typical undergraduate programme is delivered through lectures supported by tutorial workshops. Whilst lectures facilitate rapid coverage of course material, tutorial workshops offer a more personalised, supportive environment within which students can acquire mastery of lecture material through problem solving. According to Lepper and Woolverton (2002), one-on-one tutoring is the most effective method of teaching. However, in today’s undergraduate teaching environment characterised by high student numbers, one-on-one tutoring is very expensive to implement. Instead, tutoring is now often conducted through workshop sessions comprising small group collaborative learning under a tutor’s guidance.

Lepper and Woolverton (2002) compared and contrasted tutoring sessions conducted by highly effective elementary maths tutors, and those conducted by less experienced or by equally experienced but less successful tutors. On the basis of this study, they identified the characteristics, goals, strategies and techniques that contribute to success as an individual tutor. Wood and Tanner (2012)studied these findings, and concluded that they could improve the effectiveness of large class lectures.

Treisman (1992) experimented with collaborative learning in undergraduate mathematics and found that it significantly improved student performance, including those students from historically underperforming backgrounds.  Smith (1996) carried out a more formal study of collaborative and cooperative learning approaches and came up with five key elements that ensure the effectiveness of these two learning approaches. Using concepts drawn from Treisman and other researchers, Kasturiarachi (1997) developed a successful workshop model for undergraduate mathematics.

In this blog, I combine findings from these research studies on tutorial practice and collaborative learning to come up with suggestions for running effective tutorial workshops for undergraduate Engineering Mathematics.

Preparing for the Workshop Session

1. Be thoroughly familiar with the subject content of the workshop problem sheet.
2. Adequately arm yourself with a variety of real-world engineering examples that will help students to understand and appreciate the mathematical concepts covered in the workshop.
3. Anticipate the sorts of problems that are likely to appear difficult to students, and those that are likely to be easy.
4. Anticipate the likely errors that students are likely to make for each problem question, and prepare prompting questions to enable students to direct themselves out of these errors.

Designing the Workshop Exercises

1. Ensure that the worksheet covers all the materials delivered in the associated lecture.
2. List the key mathematical concepts to be covered in the workshop at the beginning of the worksheet. Then follow this up with the workshop exercises.
3. Order the workshop exercises in order of increasing difficulty and complexity. Ideally, group the workshop exercises into distinct problem sets.
4. Start the worksheet with routine problems aimed at reinforcing basic concepts, and end with relatively challenging, open-ended mathematical modelling problems designed to stretch and motivate able students.
5. Provide a solution set for the worksheet.
6. Ensure that the worksheet fits into the workshop time duration, and have its difficulty and accuracy validated by an external party.

Conducting the Workshop

1. Plan your workshop sessions to ensure that they all have the same consistent structure. This allows students to internalise the workshop structure, thereby helping to ensure that subsequent workshop sessions run smoothly with minimal tutor guidance.
2. Start the workshop by dividing students into small workgroups and giving them a brief introduction to the worksheet.
3. Ensure that each student workgroup works steadily through the worksheet, starting with the easier questions at the start of the worksheet.
4. During the workshop move continuously through the student workgroups, providing support as necessary.
5. Ensure that each workgroup progresses from one problem set to the next only after demonstrating competence and confidence in the preceeding problem set.
6. At the end of the workshop session, issue every student with a copy of the workshop solutions.

Teaching for Understanding

1. Establish a personal rapport between yourself and the students. Let the students see you as a supportive, nurturing and approachable individual.
2. Be continuously attentive to the students, empathise with their difficulties, and show that you have confidence in the students’ ability to succeed at the individual tasks.
3. Constantly use questions, as opposed to giving directions and assertions, to prompt students to discover for themselves what they need to do in order to successfully solve the problems they are working on.
4. Avoid giving direct answers to students. Instead, offer hints and suggestions to help students to take the next step on their own.
5. When students make mistakes, pose questions that prompt the students to retrace their steps and identify their errors.
6. Promote student understanding by consistently asking the students to articulate what they are learning, to explain their reasoning and their answers, and to generalise or relate workshop problem questions to engineering contexts and situations.

Fostering Collaborative Working within Workgroups

1. Ensure that students interact to help each other to solve the problem sheet.
2. Ask students to explain orally to each other how to solve problems
3. Ask students to discuss with each other the nature of the concepts and strategies being learned
4. Let students teach each other and explain to each other the underlying concepts behind the problem sets.
5. Encourage students to help, encourage and support each other’s efforts to learn.
6. Randomly call on individual students to explain their group’s choices, decisions, problem-solving strategies and efforts. This helps to ensure that no student hitchhikes on the work of others.

References

Kasturiarachi, A. Bathi. 1997. “Promoting Excellence In Undergraduate Mathematics Through Workshops Based On Collaborative Learning.” PRIMUS no. 7 (2):147-163. doi: 10.1080/10511979708965856.

Lepper, Mark R., and Maria Woolverton. 2002. “Chapter 7 – The Wisdom of Practice: Lessons Learned from the Study of Highly Effective Tutors.” In Improving Academic Achievement, edited by Joshua Aronson, 135-158. San Diego: Academic Press.

Smith, Karl A. 1996. “Cooperative learning: Making “groupwork” work.” New directions for teaching and learning no. 1996 (67):71-82.

Treisman, Uri. 1992. “Studying students studying calculus: A look at the lives of minority mathematics students in college.” College Mathematics Journal:362-372.

Wood, William B, and Kimberly D Tanner. 2012. “The role of the lecturer as tutor: doing what effective tutors do in a large lecture class.” CBE-Life Sciences Education no. 11 (1):3-9.