Maths support heads online

Swinburne University of Technology has stepped up its support services for its maths students, introducing online tutorials to complement its existing support programs.

Senior lecturer in mathematics Dr Birgit Loch is leading a research project to create ‘MathsCasts’ – online tutorial videos that explain how to solve various maths problems, aimed at helping first-year students get up to speed.

Loch, who heads up Swinburne’s Maths and Stats Help Centre (MASH), came up with the idea of the online tutorials to help students who had not grasped a concept in class.

She said she had found that many students came into MASH asking for help with the same problems.

“Students can watch the MathsCasts online, rather than coming into the centre, where we’re explaining the same thing over and over,” she said.

“They can look at these tutorials outside the support centre’s opening times.

“The students can still come in if they don’t understand something, but chances are they do understand and can spend more time on more difficult problems.”

The maths lecturers record the MathsCasts on tablet PCs, and then upload them to the website.

The idea stemmed from a pilot study Loch ran where she provided lectures recorded on tablet PCs to students and recorded additional examples for study material, so the technology was already available to create the tutorials.

While the project is in its early stages, Loch said the feedback had been resoundingly positive.

“I’m involved in a second research project where we created screencasts and gave them to Master level students, and the feedback was fantastic.”

MathsCasts is an international collaborative effort between three universities: Swinburne, the University of Limerick in Ireland and Loughborough University in England.

Loch said each university specialised in different areas of maths – engineering or maths major students, for example – so between the three, the MathsCasts addressed a huge range of topics.

While the current MathsCasts are aimed at helping first year students, some were suitable for high-level secondary school students.

There are currently more than 20 available on Swinburne’s website, with another 100 nearly completed and more on the way. The MathsCasts are also featured podcasts on iTunes U.