Extreme Apprenticeship Method in Teaching University-Level Mathematics

Abstract

At the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the University of Helsinki the courses Linear Algebra and Matrices I and II have traditionally been taught through lectures and take-home tasks. Although the pass rates have been satisfactory, the students’ level of understanding of the topics has not, which has been apparent in subsequent courses. The approach chosen to tackle this problem was to use the Extreme Apprenticeship method developed for teaching computer programming and implement it into teaching university-level mathematics. The courses under study in fall 2011 were among the largest courses at the department with hundreds of participants (N=361 and N=248). The results show that the students were satisfied with the new teaching method, and the passing rate did not drop even though the workload was significantly increased and the requirement level was raised.