Lectures with Worksheets

Paper in proceeding, 2024

We report on a teaching intervention in which mathematics lectures were modified to include the use of worksheets with tasks that students were asked to work on with peers periodically during the lectures. Do the students find this format beneficial, and does it help them with the challenges during lectures? The data consists of students´ perceptions about the intervention, collected as free-text answers to questionnaires, and was collected in two calculus courses, one in the USA (n=246) and one in Europe (n=106). The data is coded and categorised, and some basic descriptive statistics are compiled. As a framework for the analysis, we use three didactical challenges for lectures: (1) activating prior knowledge for all students, (2) retaining student focus, and (3) a lack of opportunities for students to get back on track during mathematics lectures. We find that the respondents mostly find the worksheets beneficial but time-consuming. There are indications that the respondents perceive that using worksheets diminishes problems related to the didactical challenges above. However, the challenge regarding activating prior knowledge for all students is not satisfactorily met. Practical implications of these results are discussed, including challenges with the time use and the need to understand which properties of the worksheets influence the students’ experiences the most.