One problem with conventional teaching lies in the presentation of the material. Frequently, it comes straight out of textbooks and/or lecture notes, giving students little incentive to attend class. The traditional lecture is nearly always delivered as a monologue in front of a passive audience, which compounds the problem. Only exceptional lecturers are capable of holding students' attention for an entire lecture period. It is even more difficult to provide adequate opportunity for students to critically think through the arguments being developed. They are built with just one purpose: focusing the attention of many on the professor. The professor is active, and the audience is just sitting there, supposedly taking in information. In practical classes, students are presented a set of exercises and have to solve them, the teacher acting almost as a tutor. Nevertheless, many students just sit passively waiting for the teacher or other colleagues to solve the problems. The scenario described above is not very engaging for both teachers and students. In order to create a more interesting and productive work environment, this year peer-instruction and group-assessment were introduced in an Algebra course with about 400 students. Peer-instruction was used in lectures, while group-assessment was used in practical classes. Regarding the last ones, classrooms are set up like in elementary school, four or five students per table, facing each other, and solve a set of exercises as a team. Each week, one of the sets is delivered for assessment. The classes took a lively turn, quite uncommon on math classes, and student feedback has been quite positive. Both qualitative and quantitative results will be provided in the paper.
Proceedings of the 10th International CDIO Conference, Barcelona, Spain, June 15-19 2014