Geometry for Mathematics Teacher Training Students: Dr. Norbert Koksch (#NK1)

Brief Description

The provision of all the coordinated course material, the submission of homework, the return of corrected homework and solution sheets, and the assignment of the 150 examination dates were all organized in one course. The on-site lecture was recorded and made available to all students as well as to the state examination candidates with a concentration in geometry.

Keywords

• Coordinated material
• The whole course was organized via the OPAL learning platform
• Hybrid lecture with asynchronous video recorded with simple equipment

What makes this gem special?

I compiled the lecture transcript as well as the practical tasks, homework and corresponding solutions over the course of several years. The full transcript includes internal links, keywords and symbol lists. The exercises are presented one section at a time, with the solutions provided at the end of the transcript. This makes it easier for students to engage with the subject matter, especially in preparation for the (state) examination, and also for later reference once they have begun teaching, as the exercises are clearly linked to the theory.

Around 200 students took this course. Each week, they were given the current excerpt as a gap fill text, which served as a basis for the lecture. They then received the practice exercises relating to the content to prepare for the following week.

The lectures were not modeled on simply telling the students about geometric proofs or presenting these in detail. More thought was given to how to construct proofs, talking about the key proof steps and supplementing these with sketches, as expected in the exam. During the lecture, students fill the gaps in the text and engage with the content, especially when sketching.

From experience, at least one third of students are unable to attend the lecture due to an overlap with other courses. Therefore, I offer lecture videos for asynchronous (repeated) viewing to these students, and to all those who may be prevented from attending for family, health, or other reasons, and, ultimately, to all the students. Many students thanked me for this after the exam, as this enabled them to pursue their studies despite other problems.

The videos are recorded using OBS Studio. Audio and video from the webcam as well as the xournal++ window are recorded for this purpose. A virtual camera in OBS Studio enables simultaneous integration into BigBlueButton, for example, for a live broadcast, which is now also being used in the 2022/23 course.

Related links

• OPAL course with openly accessible excerpts

Contact

Dr. Norbert Koksch

Organizational unit

Faculty of Mathematics, Institute of Analysis

Course size

Over 100 students

Voting ID

#NK1