by The Open University
Available in 16 free installments
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As you have seen from the Preamble, we have designed this toolkit for students on mathematics, technology and science courses who feel the need to get some more help with the mathematical content of their courses. We imagine a common reason why students will ask for a copy of this toolkit is because of a lack of confidence in their mathematical skills at the level that they feel will be needed in their course. However, we do not want to take this for granted. Therefore, we have written this section to help you to look at your reasons for requesting the toolkit, so that you can make plans to improve in one or more areas of mathematics.
Before you start to work through the rest of the unit, spend a few minutes thinking about why you felt that this toolkit might be helpful. In particular, answer the following questions:
What made me decide to look for help?
Why did this toolkit sound as if it would be useful?
What do I hope to gain by using this toolkit?
Don't spend too long on answering these questions. We suggest that you write down the answers before you look at our suggestions, and then keep your answers to return to later after you have done some work on the toolkit. Brief notes are enough. It should take you no more than 15?20 minutes at most.
The ideas below may be similar to yours or you may find them useful to add to your own. Your answers may be completely different, of course, and we are not suggesting that ours are the ‘right? ones ? but we hope that they might act as a trigger for you to think about other things.
What made me decide to look for help?
There are, of course, many reasons why students decide to ask for help. It may be that you have read other Student Toolkits designed to help those with concerns about mathematics and found them useful. It may be that you feel that you can understand a little about mathematics, but you are concerned that this is not enough for your current course. We have spoken to other students, and asked them this question, and some of their responses are given below.
Since school, I needed maths in my studies, and managed to get a smattering of statistics, etc. I am actually numerate by comparison with many of my colleagues. I enjoy financial planning (of my own affairs) and cope with managing budgets at work. However, I still avoid work that involves a lot of figures.
I am constantly worried about the use of maths ? I always presume that I will get simple problems wrong if numbers are involved.
I have looked at the set book ? the recommended reading is downright scary. I am just grateful that there is not an exam to do because I would never be able to pass at this level on my own.
Why did this toolkit sound as if it would be useful?
This one may be more difficult to answer. It depends on your ability and confidence in numerical work. You may feel that you need all the help that you can get and simply hope that this will be useful in some way that you can't yet define. We believe that, the more that you can decide on the answer to this sort of question at this stage, the more likely you are to gain from using this toolkit.
What do I hope to gain by using this toolkit?
This depends very much on the reasons why you asked for this toolkit. However, you might have included things like the students quoted below.
The skills I have needed as a student with the OU have been to do with interpreting information from research ? both numeric and written ? and judging the validity and reliability. I always shy away from quantitative research.
I have been studying for several years now, starting with ‘O? levels (as was), ‘A? levels and, more recently the OU. The three courses I have completed are two in biology and one in chemistry. In both subjects, the unfamiliar units used gave me pause for thought.
I am not very confident with algebra, and I know that I will need to learn how to do it for the next TMA.
One reason that you may be interested in this toolkit is that you realize that your course requires you to carry out some numerical calculations, and you don't feel very confident with this. The next activity asks you to think about the use of mathematics in your current piece of assessed work. If you haven't started your course yet for this year, then carry on to the next sections, and come back to Activity 2 in a couple of months.
Courses vary enormously in terms of their mathematical content and we suggest that you spend some time looking at your own course now. We hope that you will gain an idea of the sort of mathematical knowledge needed for your course. This should help you to plan what you might need to improve. (You may be able to find overall details in the Course Guide.) Look at the assessment that is due next for the course that you are studying. It may include a tutor marked assignment (TMA), computer marked assignment (CMA), an examinable component or an exam, depending on what stage you have reached in the course. Identify from this the parts of the assessment that require numerical skills and knowledge.
What are these skills?
What do I have to understand before I can tackle the assessment?
Where can I get help with these?
What are these skills?
Look at the questions that the assessment asks you to answer. This should enable you to make a list of what is being assessed at this time. You can repeat this exercise on a regular basis, each time you find that you have a need to identify the mathematics involved in your work.
What do I have to understand before I can tackle the assessment?
Look at the unit or block of your course that is covered by the next piece of assessment, and try to identify what the learning outcomes of that part of the course are. For example: they may say that you will be able to understand a particular concept, that you will be able to understand and use algebra or scientific notation. Different courses will have different layouts for the outcomes. You may be able to find them at the end of units, in the Assignment Booklet, in the Course Guide or in separate block guides. Once you have found the outcomes, decide which are to do with mathematical understanding. Now make a list of the mathematics that you are being asked to learn. If you aren't sure about what is required or if numerical work is not mentioned explicitly, you might need to clarify this with your tutor. The Course Team may have assumed that you have some skills already, but your tutor will know this.
Where can I get help with these?
Well, that will vary, depending on your course. You may find that your course has some teaching about mathematics built into it, or it may refer you to some extra materials that you can get hold of. Tutorials, regional day schools or residential schools may be helpful, if you are able to attend them. You can also contact your tutor directly. In addition, we hope that you will find the relevant sections of this toolkit useful. We have also included a list of reference materials at the end of the toolkit.
You should now have two lists, one that says what mathematics is assessed and one that says what is taught. If you aren't sure about these, then you may need to either look at the block or unit in more detail, or talk to your tutor or other students.
Once you have made these lists, you need to decide on priorities. We suggest that you:
decide the areas that you need to learn
make a list of these areas in order of priority
decide to tackle the one that you need to do in the short term as the first priority, then move on to others
check the rest of this toolkit, to see if what you need is covered directly
identify areas not covered here and look at the list of other resources at the back of the toolkit.
Once you have made a list of those mathematical aspects you need to learn, don't be discouraged if there seems to be quite a lot that you need to do. This can be off putting, and you might feel that you want to give up, but by preparing a prioritized list you should be able to see what you need to tackle most urgently, and make a plan for that first. Then you can come back to the rest when you need to.
This toolkit may directly cover your priority areas. If it does, then we suggest that you turn to the relevant parts in Sections 3?7. If it doesn't, try the list in Section 8 ‘Further reading and sources of help?.
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