Getting our Ducks in a Row

“Where’s the Ducks?”

This was the question with which I hit Jenny, our patient OU tutor, upon my return from lunch on the afternoon of the third day of the M500 Society’s annual Maths revision weekend.

“Ah, so you’ve been speaking to last year’s students then?” she queried with a smile.

What’s this got to do with a mathematics weekend? Well stick with me and I’ll tell you more on the ducks later…

Every year, the M500 Society, which is the Open University’s mathematics society runs a revision weekend, covering the majority of the courses run that year. Anyone can attend, and with my exam looming I had registered to attend the sessions covering MST124 – Essential Mathematics 1. Having little formal mathematical background, I figured I needed all the help I could get to pass the exam well and so this for me was something I could not afford to miss.

When I arrived on Friday evening I was warmly welcomed but was surprised at the small class size. There were a diverse mix of backgrounds amongst the 8 people on the MST124 revision stream, although I’d estimate there were a few hundred delegates in total studying various different maths courses. Given the number of students studying MST124 (it’s a compulsory module in many OU Maths and Physics degrees) I was surprised at the low take up and wondered, do people actually know this weekend exists? That’s in part why I wanted to write this piece, as I and my classmates, found this weekend invaluable.

Jenny Oldroyd was our tutor and from the moment we set foot in the classroom on Friday evening she was warm, entertaining, patient, and clear. She explained things that I’ve vaguely learned this year, but now understand much more thoroughly due to the nature of a face-to-face tutorial session – OU take note, we could do with some face-to-face tutorial options, even if it’s only 4 or 5 sessions per year. I can’t emphasis enough what a huge difference it has made, really solidified my learning of some of my personal nemesis topics – Integration by Parts, Binomial Expansion, that’s you I’m talking about!

There were also plenty of revision and exam tactics discussed, and some helpful calculator hints, for example, if you have two calculators have one set up in radians and one in degrees (and label them) to save time and reduce errors during the exam. I’ve discovered my calculator can do so much more than arithmetic thanks to this weekend!

The classroom dynamic was fun with plenty of banter between students and teacher, as we students competed with each other for the coveted title of ‘Who can ask the most inane question?’ By the end of the third day we had built a natural bond and all swapped email addresses. I’m sure some of us will stay in touch as we continue our OU journeys.

The organisation, led by Judith from the M500 Society, was superb, as was the venue. The Kents Hill Conference Centre which is adjacent to the OU MK campus was a great choice. With clean bright rooms, good food and drink, and nice open spaces surrounding to take advantage of this years first real sight of the Sun (for this Northern boy). Speaking of Northern, several students also saw the Northern Lights on the Friday evening and shared some stunning photo’s on social media.

The cost was very reasonable too. For two nights full board, including tea/coffee/snacks during the day, breakfast, dinner and tea (southerners note, that’s the correct name for the three meals), it was £295 – this included around 15 hours of mathematics tuition, which I think is outstanding value. There were other options for those who didn’t wish to stay over which reduced the cost further.

So, what about those ducks?

Well Jenny gave out small rubber ducks last year to her cohort, explaining that it helps to say maths out loud as you’re doing it and reduces the chance of a mistake. Not everyone has someone there to be able to talk to, and so she advocates, ‘say it to the duck.’  As a former programmer who always verbalises difficult problems, I can confirm that this is a great method to help eliminate small mistakes like getting minus’s wrong.

Chanting “Three minus minus two is five.” Really helps avoid those silly errors, although I characteristically managed to throw some in this weekend, just to keep Jenny on her toes!

Although Jenny had forgotten to bring her ducks with her this year, I already have one of my own which was bought for me by my eldest daughter, and I will now keep him on my desk for future maths conversation and validation.

My thanks to everyone at the M500 Society for a superbly run weekend. I’ve learned maths I didn’t know, solidified things I thought I knew and done it all with a smile and a laugh with some new friends. I can’t recommend this weekend enough, everyone who I met had the same silly grin on their face, and went away with a new found confidence in their maths – and that is about as good an outcome as you can get.

A version of this article was first published in M500 (issue 319) the magazine of the Open University M500 Society