Texas A&M University at Qatar hosts math workshop

The workshop, entitled "On the Transition from High School to University Mathematics," was designed to discuss the needs, challenges, and successes of the University's freshmen as they transition from high school mathematics to their first semester math courses at Texas A&M at Qatar.

The event provided opportunitites for high school teachers to hone their skills and inspire them to raise the level of student participation to meet the expectations of college professors. Cooperative efforts suchs as this workshop nurture relationships with school officials and provide a platform for continuous collaboration.

Raelene Dufresne, workshop presenter and mathematics lecturer at Texas A&M at Qatar, said, "The time has come to open the dialogue between high school and university educators in order to alighn the learning outcomes at high school with the learning prerequisites of university, and close the gap that incoming freshmen face. The biggest resource that Texas A&M at Qatar freshmen mathematics students have is their high school teachers. A vertical team approach to teaching and learning mathematics, from high school to university, is the key to unlocking the potential in Qatar's future engineers."

The workshop was organized as a recruitment and outreach effort by the Office of Academic Affairs. It explained the placement process of freshmen at Texas A&M at Qatar and included a modeling of a student metacognition task. A summary of the topics that current freshmen wished to have learned or understood better in high school was shared, followed by teaching and assessment strategies to fortify the desired learning in and its retention beyond high school mathematics.