What are 'examples classses'?

For physics at Manchester, one of the methods of teaching is through 'examples classes':
Some units are supported by examples classes; these involve more students than tutorials but have the similar goal of providing you with opportunities to tackle problems based on the lecture course to supplement your learning.

But what exactly does it involve (is it like the interactive teacher students classes you get in secondary schools/sixth forms etc)?

Reply 1

HandmadeTurnip

For some science/engineering courses, a couple of units are often 'outsourced' to the School of Maths. In my experience, these all follow an almost identical structure with weekly example classes so it could be referring to those. You basically just go through an examples sheet with the help of a tutor (usually a postgraduate student).

That's just a guess though as I'm not a Physics student myself.

University of Manchester

Manchester

Reply 2

Nathan0012

I am a first year uom physics students and I can say that examples classes involve working over questions on material you learnt that week or the week before. They are very useful because it's an opportunity to do the work with others as well, so you get more confident, there are usually demonstrators (PhD students) and sometimes lecturers there to help. In semester one, the examples classes (i.e workshops) I had were for Maths 1, Dynamics and Random Processes (probability).

They are nothing like tutorials, those are much more personal.

Good luck for your A-levels if that's what you're doing. :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

BP_Tranquility

Original post by Nathan0012

Thanks for that info :smile:

(I'm not the Op but I've got 2 questions if that's okay?)
Are presentations done in tutorials and if so, how many people are there usually (what's the maximum)?

Also, I don't suppose you'd know much about Hulme Hall/Woolton Hall?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

Nathan0012

Original post by BP_Tranquility

Thanks for that info :smile:

Sure. No presentations in physics tutorials, not sure what you mean. You're given a problem sheet each for maths and physics, the main tutorial is the physics one: you discuss the questions, someone will usually be put forward, or on the rare occasion they will volunteer, to go through the question on the whiteboard (these tutorials take place in professor's rooms). There won't be enough time in the tutorial to go through all the questions, just the hardest ones. You will have 5 other students in your tutorial group, it depends how well you get on together but you can become quite tight-nit which is great for making friends, etc... Just remember you're all in the same boat. Maths tutorials, to be honest, aren't really that great: a postgrad will be assigned one to three groups of 5 for the tutorials, they will check your answers and go through anything individually if you ask them, they are a lot less involved than physics tutorials.

No I don't know much about those, some one in my tutorial group lives in Hulme, his flat looked really nice, Hulme isn't that far away from Schuster, maybe 10 mins walk. I live in Whitworth Park, which sometimes is a little too close but fantastic if you get out of bed a little late or if you need something from the shops and can't be bothered to walk for ages. I think the board games society is held in Woolton hall, they're great. I initially feared shared bathrooms when I applied for accommodation, but honestly it has been fine (plus, you don't have to clean them, a big bonus).