AustMS/AMSI Teaching Seminar Series

Date & Time: Tuesday 10 December 2019, 2:00pm AEDT (GMT+11)
Location: Online via Zoom: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/787759102
Speaker: Leesa Sidhu (UNSW ADFA)
Title: Teaching a compulsory maths course to Arts and Business students

Abstract

This seminar will discuss the design and implementation of a compulsory data analysis course for Arts and Business students at UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. The Rector of UNSW Canberra requested that this course be developed, in order to ensure that all graduates are exposed to key quantitative methods relevant to them in their military careers.

The course aims to teach students to use data to answer questions and make informed, objective decisions, to evaluate information, to reason logically and evaluate the reasoning of others, to understand the methods of data analysis and to apply appropriate techniques to analyse data. It focuses on understanding the concepts of statistics without overemphasizing the mathematical detail. The commonly available computer software package, Microsoft Excel, is used for data exploration, presentation and analysis.

The course is challenging to teach as the students have quite diverse backgrounds and many lack confidence or interest in mathematics. This seminar discusses ways in which the approach used in the course helps students to overcome mathematics anxiety and motivates them to engage with the course material, by establishing a supportive and encouraging classroom environment, catering for different approaches to learning, and making appropriate use of technology.

Use this link above to participate on your PC, Mac, iOS or Android device: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/787759102

See here for details for connecting via a H.323/SIP videoconferencing room.
Seminar recording: will be available from the seminar website afterwards.

Dr. Anthony Morphett (a.morphett@unimelb.edu.au)
Mathematics and Statistics Learning Centre
School of Mathematics and Statistics
The University of Melbourne