Extreme Apprenticeship – Emphasising conceptual understanding in undergraduate mathematics

Abstract

Extreme Apprenticeship (XA) is an educational method that has been used in teaching undergraduate mathematics in the University of Helsinki.In this paper, we analyse the course assignments and exam questions of a certain lecture course that has recently been reformed to an XA-based course.The results show that the XA method has made it possible to move the emphasis from rote learning towards understanding the concepts behind the procedures.