Note about resources
In total there are 7 sheets for this course. For \( 1 \leq n \leq 6 \), Sheet \( n \) is designed for tutorials in Week \( n+2 \). Sheet 7 is designed for students to tackle over the vacation, with tutorials at the start of Hilary Term.
Each problems sheet is available both as a pdf (good for downloading and printing) and as a Moodle page (possibly more accessible, and possibly more convenient to view on your device?). This is an ongoing experiment, and I'll be glad to receive feedback about whether people find having a Moodle page version is useful, or whether the pdf is enough. To get to the pdf, you'll need to click on the 'assignment' for the relevant sheet (it doesn't show on the preview in the Course Materials list).
There are some 'starter' and 'pudding' activities, to accompany the 'main course' problems sheets.
If you're a student, then I imagine that you will tackle all the questions in the main course (on the problems sheets), and I imagine that your tutor will want you to hand in your work on these questions. Depending on how confident you're feeling with a particular topic, and how much time you have, you might choose to dip into the starter or pudding activities. You can make different menu choices each week, depending on how you feel about the topic.
Starter
The activities in the Starter section of the menu are good if you want to get some practice. You might want to warm up with these problems if you're not so confident with a particular topic, or you could return to them for consolidation later on if you want. They are interactive quizzes on Moodle. Please feel free to discuss the activities with other students, collaboration can be really helpful for building understanding.
Main course (problems sheets)
This section is designed for you to tackle in the usual way: think hard about the problems, collaborate with (but don't copy from!) other students if you like, hand in your work, discuss in the tutorial. I'm not going to provide solutions for these problems. I'd suggest that for most students the main course will be the priority, with the starter and pudding as optional extras, but feel free to discuss with your tutor.
Pudding
If, after the main course, you still have an appetite for a bit more, then please enjoy some pudding. These activities are not necessarily more challenging than those in the main course, but they might have a different style, prompt you to consider the material in a different way, or invite you to think ahead to future directions and applications for the material. It would be great if you discussed these activities with other students, it's good to share the pleasure of pudding!
I have made a few Moodle quizzes, as optional extra material in case you (the students) find them helpful.
These quizzes are all optional. They have marks (because that's how Moodle does it), but the marks don't matter and don't count for anything.
I've tried to set up all the quizzes so that you can attempt them as many times as you like.
Moodle collects data on who tries quizzes and how they get on. I will try to look at the anonymised data, because it's helpful for me to have an idea of how you're finding them -- perhaps the questions are too easy or too hard, or perhaps I clicked the wrong thing when setting up a question and that's why nobody has got it right! I do not intend to look at how individual students are doing, and I do not intend to share this data with college tutors.
I hope that you will find these quizzes useful for developing and checking your understanding of topics as we go through the course. It would be great to have your feedback on them.