Maths Advice and Revision for Chemistry (MARC)

Abstract

It has been recognised for some time by Science and Engineering departments that students are entering Higher Education ill-equipped in terms of their mathematical skills, despite having in many cases, attained good grades at Higher/A level (The Engineering Council 2000; Fry, Ketteridge & Marshall 1999; Score Education 2009). In an attempt, therefore, to ensure that all students progressing on to Chemistry degrees are equally prepared (in terms of ability and confidence) to attempt the more mathematical aspects of our courses, the School of Chemistry has over recent years been sequentially introducing mathematics support into the curriculum. As part of the School’s ongoing mathematical support provision, the aim of this project was two-fold: 1) to assess the popularity and effectiveness of tailored maths support sessions and 2) in relation to the teaching of mathematical concepts to science students, collate examples of existing appropriate open educational resources to provide additional support to facilitate student learning such as RSC Discover Maths for Chemistry and Math Centre (Royal Society of Chemistry; MathCentre 2016). A pilot project has been carried out during the academic year 2015-2016, where support sessions were delivered in tutorial format by the Maths Adviser. Although the sessions were open to all 3rd year students studying on chemistry degree programmes, the expectation was that they would mainly be attended by students with little formal mathematics training and those who are less confident about their abilities. Keywords: Chemistry, Mathematics, Student Support, Maths Support

Lessons learned from being BOLD: Staff experiences of an institutional strategic project in Blended and Online Learning Development

“…Nineteen projects were funded in all; examples are listed in Table 1 with accompanying citations to indicate wider dissemination of project outcomes or subsequently informed work*. (Kubincova, Dale, & Kerr, 2018) MSc in Health Professions Education (Huser & Jamieson, 2018) MSc in Psychology (conversion) (Barrett, Horlin, Swingler, & Morrow, 2019) MSc in Global Mental Health (Sharp, Karadzhov, & Langan-Martin, 2018) Introduction to functional programming in Haskell (blended course including MOOC) (Dale & Singer, 2019) Research methods course for Adam Smith Business School PGTs (online course in traditional Masters) (Morgan- Thomas & Dudau, 2019) Burns Online; online course as part of a traditional degree, and an associated MOOC (Young, 2016) Maths support for science: Helping students to achieve their full potential (Paschke & Ahmed, 2017) Blended learning to support student dissertations, enhance employability skills and prepare GTAs for 21st century teaching (Boyle, Ramsay, & Struan, 2019)*…”