Ideas and results in teaching beginning maths students.

At the University of Helsinki, special effort has been put to help beginning maths students to get started with their studies. This involves new ways of teaching a lecture course and new ways of giving peer support to the students. The results have been promising: the number of students passing certain important courses has been at least doubled compared to the earlier prevailing level. The present article describes the work done in connection to a lecture course and the thinking that lies behind it. A paper on peer support is planned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]