Enhancing Support for Non-Mathematics Statistics Students in Teaching Services
In response to issues faced by non-Mathematics and Statistics students, changes were introduced to improve course delivery. Initiatives included tailored support for Associate Lecturers, additional preparation materials for economists, and software for student-tutor allocation. Activities emphasized student engagement and access to tutorial resources. The aim was to address challenges and enhance the learning experience for diverse student groups.
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Statistics Service Teaching- What type of support should we provide ? HEA Horizons June 2021
Old issue with lots of dimensions - What to cover - theory / context of case studies - Who to teach it statisticians or application area subject specialists - Issues for students - mathematical skills; anxiety; ability to communicate;little professional sense of community - Issues for staff support for non maths/ stats students - Resource Issues for organisation money/staff/cultural e.g. who is owner ; student satisfaction/retention/progression; structure fits within existing constraints HEA Horizons June 2021
The original course was designed by members of the school of Mathematics and Statistics It is currently delivered to around 500 students. Delivery is online with books provided which are effectively the taught syllabus Each student is allocated to an Associate Lecturer as a tutor. The vast majority of the 25 Associate lecturers were used to working with students on Maths/Statistics qualifications whereas the majority of the students are nowadays NOT on Maths and Statistics qualifications. So we introduced CHANGE
Another take is what elements do students find hard ? Ask them /look what they attend/look what recordings they keep revisiting Number of views of tutorial recordings 2019 and 2020 cohort (multiple events per student) 800 700 600 500 Number 400 300 200 100 0 unit 1 unit 2 unit 3 unit 4 unit 5 unit 6 unit 7 unit 8 unit 9 unit 10 unit 11 unit 12 Revision views 2019 views 2020
What did we do Discussion of idea over course of the previous presentation - with the Associate Lecturers to identify their concerns - with several groups including several stakeholders - with students about the possibility of introducing the approach And - Piloted additional preparation material for economists - Developed some software to enable the student/tutor allocation to occur Prior to presentation start - Associate Lecturers (Als) given choice of which qualification group to tutor - Als with non Maths/Stats groups timetabled for fewer scheduled tutorials - All Als given more time to work just with their tutor group - Paid for examples for some units on some qualification routes to be written - All students could access ( live and recordings) the set of core and qualification route tutorials During presentation - Tutors held a variety of session just with their own students and in some cases they were content specific but not always - Increased emphasis on activity in terms of students working on questions live with the core and - qualification route tutorials using different examples and different approaches.
How did students react? But the qualification routes have different numbers of students and tutorials and recorded tutorials on them So .
Students attend their qualification route tutorials but watch the recordings of the core tutorials This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY Average "live" attendance per 100 students by qual route Average views per 100 students by qual route 800 600 14 12 400 10 8 200 6 0 4 2 0
Conclusions - SO minimal costs - We spent time in discussions a year to 18 months in advance of the changes - SO minimal surprises - We strengthened the non content role of the Associate Lecturers - SO Als generally very happy to see this restored - Contributed to building a sense of professional community for the students - SO we saw more engagement on forums- particularly on the caf forum - Very little encouragement needed to take non Q31/Q36 groups next year - SO easier in second year to timetable - We introduced on just one course - So now generating interest in applicability elsewhere We changed the support structure not the syllabus Student satisfaction and pass rates yet to see! And of course finally a student quote One of the things that has helped me enjoy M248 so much is that the things we are learning can be applied directly to data that can be easily found out there on the internet.
THANK YOU and Questions more details from carol.calvert@open.ac.uk or Rachel.Hilliam@open.ac.uk
Some interesting papers Yilmaz, MR. 1996. The challenge of teaching statistics to non-specialists. Journal of Statistics Education, 4(1) Tishkovskaya, S., and G. A. Lancaster. 2012. Statistical Education in the 21st Century: A Review of Challenges, Teaching Innovations and Strategies for Reform. Journal of Statistics Education 20 (2): 1 56. Sense-making and structure in teachers reception of educational reform. A case study on statistics in the mathematics curriculum Virginie M rz a,b,*, Geert Kelchtermans a Teaching and Teacher Education Volume 29, January 2013, Pages 13-24
