Mary Murray

I like to adapt my lessons to the needs of the students. Through my experience as a university demonstrator I have taught a wide range of courses, from seminars on the igneous geology of the British Isles to introductory coding in Jupyter notebooks (python). I have also helped younger students prepare for A-level and GCSE exams across maths, physics, and chemistry. I focus on explicit teaching of core concepts followed by hands on exercises to check understanding. Ideally, I get the students to take charge of problem sets to cement their understanding and build their confidence. Some of my most satisfying lessons have come from teaching a university level mathematics course for students who had not taken A-Level maths. This course covered a lot of key skills for a science degree within a constrained timeframe: mechanics, statistics, calculus, trigonometry. It was particulary rewarding to work with students who initially had a fear of mathematics and see them slowly grow in confidence over the course of several weeks. I liked to build a supportive enviroment where students felt comfortable to raise misunderstandings and ask "basic" questions. I have also taught on field based courses, which is quite a different enviroment and involved helping and supporting the students on their self directed projects.