Online course gives students the opportunity to have power over their maths skills
The Maths Foundations online course was written to help students – especially those not studying in a STEM degree – gain confidence to embrace future learning that requires maths skills.
Many people feel that their previous experience with maths prevents them from approaching careers or courses that interest them. For example, a student in an Arts degree might want to become a teacher and must face the government’s numeracy test, or a student in a Music degree might be fascinated by the physics of sound, but intimidated by the calculations involved. The Maths Learning Centre (part of the university’s Student Academic Skills team) provides an online course called Maths Foundations for just such people. The course covers all number and algebra skills from early schooling to Year 10, takes approximately 15 hours to complete, is self-directed with online or face-to-face support from MLC staff, and is free for all enrolled University of Adelaide students. Course coordinators, lecturers and tutors can encourage students to enrol in Maths Foundations to build their confidence and pursue their interests. I wanted to share the story of how Maths Foundations was created so that people in the university community could get a sense of what the course is like and who might find it most useful.
When I got funding in 2023 from PACE (Professional and Continuing Education) to make a course to support students’ maths skills, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Lack of confidence with number and algebra is the very thing that blocks a lot of people from pursuing various goals, and I wanted a course that helped students build on their earliest maths experiences to foster that confidence.David Butler
I began to plan what would be in the course. Based on my extensive experience supporting students at the MLC, I brainstormed the number and algebra skills that would be most useful for people studying various sciences, and for people needing to pass numeracy tests for professional registration such as nurses and teachers. I also considered what would be necessary to move on to the MLC’s bridging course MathTrackX, which can be used in place of Year 12 Maths Methods as a prerequisite for various courses such as maths and engineering.
I took those topics and organised them into four main modules that would allow students to build their number skills and algebra skills at the same time, starting from addition of whole numbers, passing through calculations of areas and volumes and time, and ending with describing lines in the coordinate plane algebraically. The actual process here involved pieces of paper with concepts and skills written on them being physically placed and moved around on the floor and multiple desks. My colleagues and my family were most gracious in accommodating my physical planning process!
The final stage of planning was to use what I had learned from years of interacting with schoolteacher colleagues from early childhood to high school, and choose activities that would help students to learn concepts and practice skills. I was excited to include activities that I know are engaging for people with from a wide range of ages and backgrounds.
Dr David Butler, Coordinator of the Maths Learning Centre
Once this planning was done, the hard yards of making the course began. The team from Learning Enhancement & Innovation were champions to help me realise my vision. One particularly long process was making all of the videos I imagined. There were many explanatory videos with physical resources from huge fractal art pieces to play-dough to toy dinosaurs to a bottle of honey. I was able to use the Peer Assisted Study Sessions classroom – which was empty for the summer – to lay everything out ready to go and to practise, before recording in the Barr Smith Library recording studio. There were also over forty worked example videos, which were each recorded in one take including all the mistakes, to help students understand the messy process of problem-solving.
On top of the videos, I wrote many pages of text, drew many pictures, created interactive online graphs, designed engaging discussion activities, and coded about seventy randomised practice problem sets. It was a herculean effort, even with the indefatigable support of the LEI team.
In April 2024, the course was launched on the AdelaideX platform. Anyone in the world can access the content for free for four weeks, and people can pay for extended access and the opportunity to test themselves with an exam. Now, in September 2025, thousands of students have enrolled, with about 40 so far choosing to complete an exam. There are multiple discussion board posts a day, and MLC lecturer Nicholas Crouch answers them with compassion and verve. I am so proud of what I have built, so grateful for the support I had to build it, and so glad students are finding it useful.
This year, through the National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund (NPILF), we have received funding to allow any student already enrolled at the University of Adelaide to have the extended access for free. One of those National Priorities is for more university graduates to have STEM experience, even if they are not studying a STEM degree. Giving students free access to Maths Foundations is one way to help meet this priority, especially if students then have confidence to try other STEM learning afterwards.
To get the extended access, all a student needs to do is make an account at EdX, and email the MLC at mathslearning@adelaide.edu.au with their EdX username and their university ID number, asking for a coupon for Maths Foundations. (They can use the same coupon for MathTrackX if they want to continue learning maths afterwards.) Anyone in the Maths Foundations course can also use the MLC’s Drop-In Centre for live support with a tutor as well.
If you have students who want to enhance their maths skills, then please let them know about the Maths Foundations course, and if you want to know more, check out the information page on the MLC website.