Scholarship Seminar: Interactive Online Maths Problem-Solving Sessions

Speaker: Abi Kirk (The Open University)

Abstract: This talk centres on a new design for an online Maths problem-solving session involving interaction and speech by students. The design has been conceived, implemented and evaluated during the presenter's eSTEeM project. There is evidence that few students speak in online OU STEM tutorials, but they do speak in online individual support sessions (ISS), so the design was based on data gathered about ISS. The resulting session design, consisting of Initial Quiz, Mathematical Icebreaker, and problem-solving using three group-work styles, will be presented in the talk. The design was tested with students of M337 Complex Analysis on occasions a year apart. It ran in Adobe Connect, with MS OneNote used in addition. The data gathered during the testing will be outlined. The talk will then present the main findings from this testing. It will describe in what way each aspect of the design was effective, and what issues arose. The main recommendations for improving the aspects will be set out. Some of these recommendations were tested the second time the design was used, and some emerged at that second testing.