On 21st March 2018 Karen Henderson, Catherine Hobbs and Kevin Golden from the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) ran the inaugural workshop in the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications Higher Education Teaching and Learning Series 2018. The workshop considered alternative approaches to teaching and learning, focussing on flipped-style teaching and problem-based learning. The aim of the workshop was to enable attendees to hear from academics who have successfully used these alternative approaches in their teaching and to share experiences across the group. A total of 28 people attended the workshop from a range of institutions: Bath, Bristol, Chester, Coventry, Greenwich, Kingston, Nottingham, Open, UCL, UEA, UWE Bristol. The workshop was funded by the IMA and the Department of Engineering Design and Mathematics, UWE Bristol which provided lunch and refreshments for participants as well as travel expenses for the speakers.
The day began with a welcome by Prof. Catherine Hobbs who set the scene for the workshop by explaining some of the motivations for making changes to her teaching, in particular when comparing to how she was taught at University level. Getting students to be active learners through the flipped approach is something that she has adopted and evaluated in her own practice and problem-based learning is the direction that all the programmes in the Department of Engineering Design and Mathematics at UWE Bristol are working towards.
The morning session of the workshop was dedicated to flipped learning. Prof. Simon Lancaster (UEA) gave the first presentation entitled Flipping in Chemistry – lessons for Mathematics. He engaged the group by using TurningPoint audience response questions. These were designed to promote active learning and the aim was to use questions that “were in the goldilocks-zone”, which meant that they weren’t too difficult or too easy. These were found to be the best for active learning by enabling student-student discussions. Dr Karen Henderson (UWE Bristol) gave the next presentation giving an overview of how she and Catherine Hobbs have successfully implemented and evaluated flipped learning with mathematics at UWE Bristol. They concluded that emphasising the benefits and value of the approach at the start of each module has been key to engaging students as well as conveying the expectation that students have to work in advance. Prior to lunch attendees were invited to share approaches for active learning that had worked well for them and this generated good and useful discussions through the lunch break.
The afternoon session of the workshop focussed on problem-based learning. The first presentation was by Dr Kevin Golden (UWE Bristol) who gave an overview of some of the concepts behind problem-based learning and the rationale for why at UWE Bristol we are planning to adopt these principles throughout the Department of Engineering Design and Mathematics in the next few years. One reason being the move to new premises; for Mathematics in September 2018 and the construction of the new Engineering building, due to open in 2020. He also gave an overview of examples that are currently being used with our Mathematics and Statistics students. The final presentation was by Dr Ksenia Shalonova (Bristol) who elaborated on some of the benefits and difficulties of teaching Mathematics through problem solving. She explained the approach that is taken in the Department of Engineering Mathematics, Bristol University in which the cohort is split into groups of 4-5 people and each group is given a different open-ended project to work on. She gave examples of some of the problems posed. Through being exposed to these types of challenges from the start of their studies students grow in confidence as they progress through their studies.
For the final part of the workshop we split into three separate groups and the ensuing discussion focussed on three questions:
- What works well
- Ideas to take forward
- Long-term plans
One suggestion from the ensuing discussion was to collate resources on the themes of the workshop.
The workshop presentations are available on the University of the West of England’s website.
