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This page tells new students something about the way in which teaching and learning is achieved. Courses in the University, and in particular in the Faculty of Science, are given through the medium of a mixture of the following devices:
Lectures | Practicals | Tutorials | On-line material | Seminars | Tests | Examinations
Most courses in the Faculty of Science involve four or five lectures per week, with possibly one or two tutorial periods, and in many cases one or two practical sessions. First year courses are limited to one practical session, four lectures and one tutorial or test per week.
Most science courses have one lecture each day, which you are expected to attend. (You are paying for them, after all!) The lecture is the main vehicle used to put across course material. It takes the form of an address on an aspect of the subject by a member of the academic staff. Material covered in lectures is seldom "revised", as it would be at school. Students are well advised to take notes of what is said, so that they can study these after the lecture is over.
Virtually all Science departments stress the value and necessity of conducting experiments in laboratory situations. For these the class may be divided into smaller groups, because few departments have a single laboratory large enough to house the entire class, or the funds to provide equipment for all the members to use simultaneously. Once the experiments have been done, students are usually expected to prepare reports on their findings. These are then assessed, and the marks form part of the student's assessment for the year. You are strongly urged to attend and to complete all your practical assignments. Not only is this compulsory for the purposes of earning a "DP certificate" - usually the most valuable learning experiences occur in the labs, where you get to know the staff and fellow students far better than in a formal lecture.
A lecture tends to be characterized by the lecturer doing all the talking, although most lecturers welcome questions during or after a lecture, provided that these are relevant to the material being discussed. In tutorials, on the other hand, the class is usually divided into smaller groups, each one under the supervision of a staff member or senior graduate student. Problems are usually posed some time before the tutorial commences; students are expected to have tried to solve them before the group meets, and the tutorial then takes the form of a discussion of the problems, with every member of the group encouraged to participate.
An increasing number of courses provide access to learning material using on-line computer access using systems like "Moodle" and "RUConnected" to deliver it. Many lecturers also put their lecture slides onto departmental web pages as well. While these are excellent in themselves, simply downloading lecture slides is no substitute for going to the lectures and seeing and listening to the Real Thing!
A seminar is also less formal than a lecture. It is often conducted by one of the members of the group discussing a particular topic that he or she has prepared. The other members of the group are then invited to discuss the presentation - they will not, usually, have done as much preparation of their own beforehand.
Departments hold regular tests to allow staff and students to measure their progress and understanding. Marks for tests usually form a component of the student's overall assessment for credit, and attendance at tests is compulsory.
The most crucial part of the assessment of a student is, of course, done through formal examinations. These are held in June and November, and it is impossible to obtain credit for a course unless you attend them.
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