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Small group workshops and confidence logs

Small group workshops is one method that can be used to support students to develop skills and confidence in the area of Mathematics. Small group teaching not only promotes learning of the subject, since students are actively involved with the session (Griffiths, 2003; Newble and Cannon, 2000), but it also encourages students to develop interpersonal skills (Newble and Cannon, 2000). The small group sessions at Brunel University have been designed so that students are actively involved and encouraged to ask questions, which will help overcome any misconceptions they may have with the topic area (Biggs, 2003).		Structure of small group workshops
		The use of confidence logs to identify students' needs
		Delivery of workshops
		Resources available for small group workshops

 

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Photo: flgr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/flgr/94673490/ Used under Creative Commons licence

 

Structure of small group workshops

The structure of the workshops that have been developed and delivered at Brunel University follows the model described by Newble and Cannon (2000) who state three characteristics that small group workshops should follow:

• active participation;
• face-to-face contact;
• purposeful activity.

The first of these implies that students and tutors are actively involved in the session (Newble and Cannon, 2000). To develop skills, students need the opportunities to practice, receive input from others and get feedback on their progress (Cottrell, 2001). This is especially true of students from a widening participation background. They lack the required knowledge and capabilities to achieve the required goal since they are not given the opportunities to practice them (Cottrell, 2001). To encourage and achieve this, activities (individual and group activities) are embedded into the workshops. Each workshop follows the same structure:

	Introduction
	Theory Examples Practice Questions	→	1 block per skill being  covered in the session
	Theory Examples Practice Questions
	. . .
	Summary/close of session

Fully worked solutions are distributed to students as a separate handout at the end of each session, however, at the end of each activity (practice questions), answers are discussed with students so that they can monitor their own progress as they work through the material.

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The use of confidence logs to identify students' needs

The workshops are offered to students on a term-by-term basis as part of the Academic Skills Service, which is a central service at Brunel University that supports students with generic academic study skills, academic writing and Maths, Stats and Numeracy (http://www.brunel.ac.uk/life/study/library/sylat/studyskill). Since the workshops are offered to all students across the university and across levels of study it is sometime difficult to identify the needs of students attending the sessions. To gain a clearer understanding of students' needs, confidence logs are used. The log asks students to rate their own confidence with each of the skills being covered in the session. It not only allows the tutor running the session to get a grasp of the level of students understanding with the topic area at the start of the session but it also helps to assess whether the small group workshops are aiding students to build confidence, since students are also asked to complete the same log at the end of the session.

 

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Delivery of workshops

Each workshop is designed as a two-hour session. The workshops can be offered as part of a learning development programme to help students in the area of mathematics or can be embedded into a module or programme of study. Although these workshops are generic, examples can be incorporated which are more subject specific.
These sessions have all been delivered to students at Brunel University and have been particularly useful for foundation and level one students (specifically non-mathematicians).
Feedback collected from students indicates that not only do they find the nature of the workshops an ideal environment to overcome difficulties in the area of mathematics and to build confidence but also find the handouts useful to have and take away with them.

One of the workshops, ‘The rules of differentiation’, has been written up as a case study. This case study explains in more detail 

• the structure of the session,
• evaluation of the session and 
• results from the confidence logs.

  

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Resources available for small group workshops

For each workshop the following resources are available:

• Tutors notes - these notes contain all the examples and activities that will be completed in the session.
• Confidence logs - 'before' and 'after' logs are included for each session so that students' confidence can be monitored.
• Student handout - this handout coincides with the tutors notes and contains all the examples and activities, with gaps.
• Solutions - fully worked solutions which are distributed at the end of each session.

Algebra 1     Rules of indices     Expanding bracketed expressions     Factorisation of simple algebraic   expressions	Tutors Notes	Confidence Log	Student Handout	Solutions
Algebra 2     Solving linear equations     Transposition of formulae	Tutors Notes	Confidence Log	Student Handout	Solutions
Introduction to differentiation     Power rule, constant-multiple rule, constant term     ln x, exponentials, sine and cosine     Higher order derivatives     Maxima, Minima and Points of Inflexion	Tutors Notes	Confidence Log	Student Handout	Solutions
Differentiation - the rules     Chain rule     Product rule     Quotient rule     Combinations	Tutors Notes	Confidence Log	Student Handout	Solutions
Integration - the basics     Indefinite integrals     Definite integrals     Integration that leads to log functions	Tutors Notes	Confidence Log	Student Handout	Solutions

 

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References 

Biggs, J. (1999) Aligning teaching and assessment to curriculum objectives. [Online]. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/id154_aligning_teaching_and_assessment [Accessed: 18^th June 2008]

Cannon, R. and Newble, D. (2000) A handbook for teachers in universities and colleges. 4^thEdn. London: Kogan Page Ltd. 

Cottrell, S. (2001) Teaching study skills and supporting learning. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Griffiths, S. (2003) 'Teaching and learning in small groups'. In H. Fey, S. Ketteridge and S. Marshall (Eds.) The effective academic: a handbook for enhanced academic purpose. London: Kogan Page Ltd.