Distinctive teaching style in mathematics and statistics

Less listening, more doing

La Trobe students spend 60% of class time practising mathematics as compared to the norm of 20%. A typical first-year single semester maths subject at Australian universities consists of four lectures and one tutorial or practice class. At La Trobe, students attend two lectures, two practice classes and one tutorial. A similar pattern continues through second year and third year, where at least one third of class time is spent actively doing maths. This approach not only means that students get to do mathematics under academic supervision, it means that La Trobe students get more access to staff than at other Australian universities.

A distinctive tutorial program

In first-year and second-year mathematics subjects at La Trobe, students attend tutorials in dedicated rooms lined with blackboards. Students work individually or in pairs with teaching materials specially designed for the board. The subject materials are carefully integrated with the lecture material so that the students are exposed to new material in a hands-on manner. Demonstrators circulate around the class answering questions and offering advice. In some cases, blackboard tutorials are replaced by tutorials in computer labs, but the role of the demonstrator and the relationship between the subject matter and the lecture material remains the same. This learning environment is completely different to the conventional maths tutorial where either the tutor works through problems or students sit at desks working on their assignments or on routine problems set by their tutors.

Tailor-made teaching materials

Almost every mathematics subject and some statistics subjects at La Trobe have their own printed notes which are completely integrated with the printed teaching materials for practice classes and tutorials. This method allows us to decrease the number of lectures and allow the opportunity to increase the number of hands-on classes. It also means that students do not have to transcribe lecture notes because lectures closely follow the printed notes. This is very different to the usual situation where a textbook is used, which is usually not written for an Australian audience and so not well coordinated with secondary school mathematics. Compared with department produced teaching materials, in the conventional situation, textbooks do not often closely link to the lectures and the other teaching materials are usually problem-based; the overall effect being one of fragmentation.

A further benefits this approach to tailor-made teaching materials at La Trobe has been the capacity to incorporate staff research results into the teaching materials. Research at La Trobe informs the teaching of mathematics because the teaching materials are the intellectual property of the academics.

Everyone teaches

One of the underlying principles of teaching mathematics at La Trobe is that lecturing staff must be involved in all aspects of the teaching program. For example, the academics delivering the lectures in a first year subject must take a tutorial and supervise at least one practice class in their subject. This is quite unlike some other Australian institutions where the senior staff deliver lectures but do not take tutorials for example and don't mark assignments or even exams in some cases. Again research informs teaching because, from professors down, everyone is involved in our whole teaching program. In this way the approach to the subject driven by the sense of enquiry of an active researcher which is communicated to the students.