A University Math Help Centre as a Support Framework for Students, the Instructor, the Course, and the Department

Abstract

Among many challenges a math department at a post-secondary institution will most likely be faced with the optimization problem of how best to offer out-of-lecture learning support to several thousand first- and second-year university students enrolled in large math service courses within given spatial, scheduling, financial, technological, and manpower resource constraints, and at the same time ease the administrative work of the instructor. This article describes how math workshops, essentially math help centres, are set up in the Department of Mathematics at Simon Fraser University so that they provide the administrative and learning support structure for the students, the instructor, the course, and the department. The roles and responsibilities of the workshop coordinator, instructors, teaching assistants, and students are outlined along with a discussion of the challenges and benefits of this support framework.