By Dr Rachel Hilliam

I’m writing this on a sunny February morning in 2021 and wondering if this time last year I would have believed just how much online teaching and learning would take place during the many months of covid19 disrupted life which was to follow. Given that I work for The Open University, where all my students learn at a distance, the change in teaching was not too different from any other year. Though the way that we support students did change, not least due to the disruption the pandemic wreaked on staff and students alike. However, our teaching carried on in much the same way. This was far from the case for most of the rest of the HE sector.

The swift close of university campuses in March 2020 saw the abrupt switch to online exams and learning. It was the beginning of May that Michael Grove from the IMA, Kevin Houston from the LMS and myself had an initial conversation voicing concerns that come September teaching in universities might be very different from what we had been used too in the past. Whilst providing teaching and learning online in any subject is not without its difficulties there are particular challenges in the mathematical sciences. To try assist colleagues with this task we launched TALMO and ran a two day-day workshop in June consisting of twelve talks delivered on Zoom. I don’t think the three of us ever imagined just how popular the event would be with exactly 700 participants attending over the two days and a clear indication that people wanted more events.

Over the next few months, we ran 6 more events, two of these in conjunction with the RSS Teaching Statistics SIG; each event attracting large numbers and lively interaction in the chat. There was an overwhelming sense of community in these events, with people offering suggestions and tips to help colleagues in other institutions who were wrestling with the problem of teaching and supporting mathematics and statistics students in this new online world. The mathematics and statistics community have contributed to the TALMO resources which are available through the TALMO website.

With the announcement of the 2021 lockdown we ran a session where people provided short talks giving the tips they had learnt during the Autumn term. There will be a similar session taking place on March 17th. In less than 9 months TALMO has reached over 1200 people in the UK and beyond. The strength is in the community helping and supporting each other; the sessions have connected mathematics and statistics colleagues who are passionate about their teaching and supporting students. Who knows what the future of mathematical sciences teaching will look like, but with a strong and supportive community we can be confident that our students will benefit for our collective experience.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed and participated in these events.