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Publications
Publications (161)
Generative AI systems designed to produce text do so by drawing on inferences made from training data, which may mean they reproduce factual errors or biases contained in that data. This process is illustrated by querying ChatGPT with questions from a history of mathematics quiz designed to highlight the common occurrence of mathematical results be...
Most higher education institutions in the UK now offer some form of additional individual support for mathematics and statistics. Whilst numerous studies have shown mathematics support can improve grades and reduce failure rates, there is a lack of research on other outcomes of interest such as anxiety or confidence, and very little research relati...
This collection of case studies aims to share good practice, ideas and advice for anyone working or participating in maths engagement.
We have spoken to a variety of maths engagement practitioners and asked them to outline what they did, why they did it that way and what they learned during the process in a case study. We hope you find them useful....
This paper describes the collaborative development of an agenda for research on e-assessment in undergraduate mathematics. We built on an established approach to develop the agenda from the contributions of 22 mathematics education researchers, university teachers and learning technologists interested in this topic. The resulting set of 55 research...
A partially-automated method of assessment is proposed, in which automated question setting is used to generate individualized versions of a coursework assignment, which is completed by students and marked by hand. This is designed to be (a) comparable to a traditional written coursework assignment in validity, in that complex and open-ended tasks...
The first thing I did when I heard we had approval to run a new final year module ‘Game Theory and Recreational Mathematics’ was buy a thousand matches. I was sure I would want to include Nim in the game theory section of the new module. It
was not so easy to work out how to typeset Nim games in my lecture notes, which ultimately led to me writing...
This paper describes the collaborative development of an agenda for research on e-assessment in university mathematics. We adapted an established approach to develop the agenda from the contributions of 22 mathematics education researchers, university teachers and learning technologists interested in this topic. The resulting set of 55 questions ar...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the teaching of programming for undergraduate mathematicians was moved online. This was delivered asynchronously, with students working through notes and exercises and asking for help from staff via online messages as needed. Staff delivery time was redirected from content delivery into a formal system of formative ass...
Topic modelling, an automated literature review technique, is used to generate a list of topics from the text of all articles published in previous issues of MSOR Connections. There are many topics of consistent popularity, including assessment, employability, school-university transition and the teaching of specific subjects and skills with the ma...
A survey was created to investigate the experiences of mathematics undergraduates with informal mathematical activity prior to starting university, and links these with the decision to study mathematics. A questionnaire was completed by a small sample of first-year undergraduates at two UK universities. Generally, incoming undergraduates are shown...
Programming in undergraduate mathematics is an opportunity to develop various mathematical skills. This paper outlines some topics covered in a second year, optional module ‘Programming with Mathematical Applications’ that develop mathematical thinking and involve mathematical activities, showing that practical programming can be taught to mathemat...
A literature review establishes a working definition of recreational mathematics: a type of play which is enjoyable and requires mathematical thinking or skills to engage with. Typically, it is accessible to a wide range of people and can be effectively used to motivate engagement with and develop understanding of mathematical ideas or concepts. Re...
Editorial for volume 18 issue 1 of MSOR Connections, free to access at: https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/msor/article/view/1047
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and development of a final year undergraduate mathematics module designed to address professional skills development at a UK university, including via input to curriculum and assessment from employers, and to investigate student acquisition of skills from this module.
Design/methodology/a...
The Maths Arcade is a regular, optional drop-in session to play strategy games and puzzles, taking place at a range of U.K. universities. The main aims are to support students, create a maths-themed staff-student community and develop mathematical thinking through strategy game-play. At some universities, the Maths Arcade has additional aims, inclu...
In this systematic review of the research literature on engineering employability, curricular and pedagogical arrangements that prepare graduates for work in the twenty-first century were identified. The research question guiding the review was: Which curricular and pedagogical arrangements promote engineering students’ employability? The particula...
Over recent decades, our community has operated numerous projects and produced countless resources. Certainly some of these were of their time and are now of limited value, but many still offer huge potential for those engaged with teaching, learning, assessment and support in higher education mathematics, statistics and OR. However, projects that...
Part of the 'Review a legacy resource' feature, this article offers a review of the wiki created by the project Industrial Problem Solving for Higher Education (IPSHE), which offers a collection of mathematics project briefs inspired by industrial collaborations suitable for all undergraduate levels. This article provides a brief overview of the IP...
Free to access via: https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/msor/article/view/702 To inform discussion about content for the first year of undergraduate mathematics, a study was completed which reviewed: the A-level Mathematics specification; published literature on the transition from A-level to university mathematics; the second and third year curri...
Free to access at: https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/msor/article/view/601
The Maths Arcade is an extracurricular activity to play strategy games and puzzles, aiming to provide an informal student support environment, improve staff-student interaction and develop mathematical thinking. Running a Maths Arcade presents some need for information ab...
Free to access here: http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Employability-Development-booklet.pdf#page=46
Free to access here: http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Employability-Development-booklet.pdf#page=50
Free to access here: http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Employability-Development-booklet.pdf
Read via: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0020739X.2016.1262470 By helping create a shared, supportive, learning community, the creative use of custom-designed spaces outside the classroom has a major impact on student engagement. The intention is to create spaces that promote peer interaction within and across year groups, encourage clo...
Open access via: https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/msor/article/view/278 MathsJam is an annual recreational maths conference in the U.K. which offers short talks covering interesting puzzles, games and problems. It is not an educational meeting, but there is potentially great value in attending this conference which is full of useful ideas.
Open access via: http://www.sigma-network.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/CETL-MSOR-2015-Proceedings.pdf#96 A new final year module was developed in 2012 as part of the Keele undergraduate mathematics degree employability strand. This aimed to develop skills including problem-solving, group working, communication skills and reflection, which are v...
Open access via: http://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=tme The Maths Arcade is an extracurricular club for undergraduate students to play and analyse strategy board games, aimed at building a mathematical community of staff and students as well as improving strategic and mathematical thinking. This educational initiat...
Read via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2014.945136 ‘The unplanned impact of mathematics’ refers to mathematics which has an impact that was not planned by its originator, either as pure maths that finds an application or applied maths that finds an unexpected one. This aspect of mathematics has serious implications when increasingly researcher...
Open access via: https://www4.ntu.ac.uk/webevents/news_events/document_uploads/167719.pdf#95 This paper describes changes made to a first year mathematics module to attempt to improve opportunities for communication between the lecturer and students. The work is in progress and the paper focuses on describing the changes and the reasons they were m...
Open access via: http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/BCME8-38.pdf This research explored assessment and e-assessment in undergraduate mathematics and proposed a novel, partially-automated approach, in which assessment is set via computer but completed and marked offline. This potentially offers: reduced efficiency of marking but incr...
Open access via: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/msor_13-2-7.pdf Noel-Ann Bradshaw’s method for allocation of students to groups involves asking students to form small groups themselves which the lecturer pairs up to make large groups based on his or her knowledge of the students involved. This is a compromise between self-selected and lec...
Open access via: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=jhm A reflective account is presented of experiences which took place alongside a research project and caused a change in approach to be more sceptical about implementation of learning technology. A critical evaluation is given of a previous e-assessment rese...
Peter Rowlett introduces seven little-known tales illustrating that theoretical work may lead to practical applications, but it can't be forced and it can take centuries.
Paper includes the tale: 'From quaternions to Lara Croft,' by Mark McCartney and Tony Mann.