Good Practice Case Study - Maths

Often Mathematics students are unsure what careers their Maths degree can lead into, and they often lack the “soft skills” employers value. We created a module which aims to 

• show students how Mathematics can be applied in many different areas

• see how already after 1st year they have lots of Mathematical tools to attack “real world” problems

• provide a regular platform to promote placements and to invite CES, SPEC, and employers to speak to students about careers

• give students concrete experiences that they can draw on when applying for jobs, and opportunities to develop their “soft skills” such as teamwork and communication

Some years ago we had a 20 credit 2nd year module about employability, which was mostly to do with CV's and psychometric tests, along with some pass/fail submissions such as reflective essays. This module was pretty universally disliked by students, and got some of our lowest student satisfaction scores; typical feedback was 'we want to do Maths, not CV's'.  Also pass/fail assessments were not taken seriously.

We decided to completely redesign this module, where the philosophy is to have students doing Mathematics, but in the process developing their employability and soft skills. The way it works is: we have a series of seminars, where I introduce students to Mathematical techniques which can be applied in various ways; then I present students with a choice of several 'open ended' and 'real world' problems and they divide into teams and work over several weeks to analyse their problem, write a group report, and give a short presentation. This is quite new and novel to them, so I give them lots of feedback and then in the second teaching block we do it all over again; they always do better the second time round. I try and make the open-ended problems topical and interesting, such as: modelling the spread of diseases, forecasting climate data, analysing the neuronal structure of a worm's brain, predicting the evolution of wildfires, etc.

This module took a long time to develop, as there are many aspects to consider. If students are to work on “real world” problems, then these problems need to be accessible; it is no good having students getting stuck on some intractable problem, so the open problems have to be carefully chosen. Then the seminars need to be developed, introducing the appropriate methods needed to attack the open problems, and they need slides, exercises, tests, sample tests etc. Students need to write their group reports professionally so they need to be shown how the template works and how to use LaTeX and Overleaf, plus they need to be shown some Mathematica so they can do some analysis/simulations; all of this material needs to be prepared and presented well on the Moodle page, videos recorded and so on. 

The module takes a lot of effort to deliver: liaising with external people, putting students in groups, curating the Moodle page. Marking the group reports is time consuming, and one of the main complaints from students is around the spread of marks awarded so the peer assessment tool is needed. Presentations need to be scheduled, rooms booked, tutors made aware, and so on. 

All of the above is in addition to the time spent in the room with students, so it is a big time commitment. I have developed and deliver this module myself; there is some assistance from personal tutors with the presentation at the end of the year.

It is a worthwhile endeavour and hits many targets: not just developing students’ employability skills, but also as they are working in a team with other students (something we have not traditionally done much of in Mathematics) it helps students make friends and develop a sense of community. There is also an element of “co-creation”, in that what the students actually submit at the end of the group sessions is largely their own design; I only get them started and they go from there. Having said that it is a time-consuming endeavour, and for students to take it seriously it needs (in my opinion) to have elements worth credit and marks; just making it pass/fail or voluntary in some sense would not be enough. 

Also I have found that students are used to being assessed in a very “transparent” way, by which I mean: this question is worth 5 marks, solving that equation is worth 10 marks, and so on. When students are instead asked to write a report, but not told specifically what that report should contain in terms of content, they find it very hard to make the transition (this could be just a Maths students thing; I am sure in subjects more used to essay-based assessments this would not be so much of an issue).

Feedback on the module is much improved: the previous incarnation of this module was one of the lowest in the School and now it is above average (in 21-22 module satisfaction was 4.2 out of 5). More anecdotally, we find students saying things like: they needed to prepare a presentation for a job interview about a time they had to work in a team, and they use this module as an example; or they didn’t really know anyone in first year but now after this module they have made a new group or friends and they feel more confident going into final year. 

It is hard to give more quantifiable evidence of how this module has been successful.

Hallmark 2. - Be intellectually curious, and able to think independently, analytically and creatively (the open-ended real-world problems are completely different to what they will have seen in traditional lectures, and I encourage creativity in approaching them)

Hallmark 3. - Generate ideas and develop creative solutions of benefit to society and the economy (I try and choose the open-ended problems to be topical and related to socio-economic issues)

Hallmark 5. - Be effective team players (traditionally Maths students don’t do a lot of teamwork, so this is a good learning experience for them in this way)

Hallmark 8. - Be able to communicate clearly and effectively (traditionally Maths students submit work which is a long list of equations; in this module the emphasis is on explaining and describing their work)

Hallmark 9. - Be able to work in a range of environments (we set up the group sessions to mimic the assessment centres that lots of employers use, and since it is such a break from the traditional format it encourages students to be adaptable)

Graduate Hallmarks