Making maths accessible during and beyond COVID.

Описание: Anita Frederiks, Kate Derrington and Cristy Bartlett. University of Southern Queensland
During the peak of COVID in 2020, the Maths Learning Advisors, at a regional Queensland University, developed a weekly online workshop program. These maths sessions expanded the existing program facilitated by the Discipline Learning Advisors and Liaison Librarians (Derrington et al., 2021). This online program built on transition pedagogy (Kift et al., 2010), where sessions extended beyond the initial orientation period, were intentional, and student centred (just-in-time, just-for-me). The program was informed by Stone’s (2016) national guidelines for online learning and addressed the need for early intervention, teacher presence, engaging and supportive content, and ongoing contact throughout the semester. Redmond et al.’s (2018) online engagement framework, which measures social, cognitive, behavioural, collaborative, and emotional engagement elements, has been used to review and evaluate the program. The one-hour Maths Online Study Support sessions were short presentations (approx. 15 minutes) with different topics each week. In the balance of the session, students had the opportunity to collaboratively work through additional problems based on the weekly content and ask other maths or study related questions. As these sessions were online, students and staff were able to practice with different technologies and learn from each other. This presentation will share the lessons learnt from the student feedback surveys and the experiences of session facilitators.