DEVELOPING A LEARNING SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR STUDENTS IN MATHEMATICS RICH DISCIPLINES Anne Porter and Norhayati Baharun School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia alp@uow.edu.au 1. ABSTRACT This talk focuses on two aspects of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded project Building Leadership Capacity in the Development and Sharing of Mathematics Learning Resources, Across Disciplines, Across Universities. The primary aim of this project is to develop leadership capacity, which in the simplest sense is to engage others in the sharing of predominantly video-based mathematics learning resources. The resources were to cover 100 level tertiary mathematics, statistics and bridging programs and thereby higher levels of university subjects in the disciplines that used 100 level mathematics and statistics. The sharing of technical expertise in relation to creation of resources has been one of the successes of this project as has the development and trial of different genres of video. The TabletPC has been one of the major tools used to create resources. The creation of resources has led to questions as to the best ways to combine resources and hence the second focus on learning design for effective learning support of mathematics based subjects. 2. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND CONTEXT Teaching disciplines that have mathematics as a fundamental component are fraught with difficulties, worldwide. The decline in levels of mathematics subjects taken by high school students in Australia has been well documented [5]. The lowering of contact hours, entry standards, student ability and engagement with mathematics pose problems at the tertiary level not only in the study of Mathematics but in disciplines such as Engineering where mathematics skills are considered to be of fundamental importance [8]. A wide range of approaches to the provision of mathematics learning support have been identified [11]. In the Australian context, several universities have no mathematics learning support centre. Others have lone workers. At the other extremity, there are Universities that have a solid core of mathematics learning support. Characteristic of many universities that have such support are restrictions of resources to bridging courses or 100 level students. Sometimes support is restricted to, small group work as opposed to individual tuition, reflecting the limit of resources. Diversity in levels of support has been identified and is often closely related to the strategic priorities given to mathematics support in universities. Participants at the symposium on Learning Support for Mathematics and Statistics (QUT, July 2007) recognized: • The critical roles of mathematical and statistical skills in underpinning student success in many courses • The need to care for students entering with diverse mathematics backgrounds and skills