• Tilting the classroom, by Lara Alcock.
    • This is a fantastic article and a must read for all lecturers. Lara Alcock describes 12 simple suggestions on how to make a lecture more active and engaging. This contains buckets loads of wisdom and is easy to read.
  • Ideas from Mathematics Education, by Lara Alcock and Adrian Simpson.
    • This is another fantastic resource and again is a must read, but only for mathematics lecturers. They describe in detail three mathematical ideas that almost all mathematicians take for granted, but which the majority of students lack. They define the ideas, present evidence that shows students lack of understanding of them and provide suggestions on how to improve your students’ understanding. This resource is quite long, however, it is exceedingly easy to read. I recommended it to a friend and they responded with a one-line email: “I agree, it’s extremely good.”
  • How I Wish I’d Taught Maths, by Craig Barton.
    • I have only read a small part of this book, but I am already enamoured by it. Craig Barton thinks and explains his thoughts clearly, and there is a huge amount of knowledge, experience and wisdom packed into this book. The one downside of the book is that it is so comprehensive that it will take me some effort to digest the information in it.

Talks

  1. Why you shouldn’t teach BODMAS
    Slides
    Discovering Teaching Excellence, Leicester, 2017 Jul.
    BODMAS summarises the conventions for deciding which order to do calculations in a mathematical expression. In this talk, I explain why you shouldn’t teach BODMAS: It often gives the wrong answer, it often gives no answer, it’s hard to determine when it does work, and it focuses on rules rules instead of understanding.

  2. Active Learning in STEM Foundation Year Maths Lectures
    Slides
    Discovering Teaching Excellence, Leicester, 2018 Jun.
    I will describe how I used active learning in my mathematics lectures in the STEM Foundation Year. To summarise, I do the following. 1) Provide “gappy’ lecture notes”. 2) Use the document-camera, instead of slides or whiteboards. 3) Include “Warm-Up Questions’” at the start of the lecture. 4) Have the students attempt short and long questions throughout the lecture. 4a) Short questions. I either directly ask an individual student or ask the whole audience to answer a true-false question with thumbs up/down. 4b) Long questions. I walk around to see how students are doing and help on a 1-1 basis.

  3. Active learning and e-assessment, in STEM Foundation Year Maths at the University of Leicester
    Slides
    Horizons in STEM HE Conference, Hull, 2018 Jun.
    I will describe how I have tried using active learning and e-assessment in my teaching of mathematics to Foundation Year students. To promote active learning in the lectures, I provide “gappy lecture notes”, include “Warm-Up Questions’” at the start of the lecture and have the students attempt short and long questions throughout the lecture. The NUMBAS e-assessment tool forms 80% of the coursework: Each e-assessment is made available on Blackboard at the start of each week, unlimited attempts are allowed until the weekend before exams with only the maximum mark counting and instant feedback is provided at the end of each attempt.

  4. Do students do their homework last minute?
    Slides
    Discovering Teaching Excellence, Leicester, 2019 Jun.
    A common stereotype of students (and people in general) is that they do their work last minute. Previously, the only way of finding out whether and to what extent this stereotype is true would be by asking students, which is not reliable. In the STEM Foundation Year, we use the NUMBAS e-assessment system, which records the times that students start and end the assessment. This has allowed me to answer the question: Do students do their homework last minute?

  5. Do students do their homework last minute?
    Poster, Details
    Horizons in STEM HE Conference, Kingston, 2019 Jul.
    A common stereotype of students (and people in general) is that they do their work last minute. Previously, the only way of finding out whether and to what extent this stereotype is true would be by asking students, which is not reliable. In the STEM Foundation Year at the University of Leicester, we use the NUMBAS e-assessment system, which records the times that students start and end the assessment. This has allowed me to answer the question: Do students do their homework last minute?
    In this poster, I will present my analysis of this data. The poster is minimalistic and full details can be found in the accompanying report named ‘Details’.

  6. False assumptions about students’ knowledge in numeracy/mathematics
    Slides, Handout
    Horizons in STEM HE Conference, Kingston, 2019 Jul.
    The aim of the workshop will be to challenge the assumptions we make about our students’ knowledge and understanding of basic mathematics, and to discuss what, if any, changes are required to how we teach. In the past two years of teaching Maths to STEM Foundation Year students at the University of Leicester, I have discovered numerous gaps in mathematical knowledge or understanding that I previously took for granted. As an example, I incorrectly assumed that all students knew how to calculate 9-5+3. When I mention this to colleagues, they are surprised, so I believe it will be valuable to share my experiences with you.

    I will start the workshop by listing various assumptions I have had about students, and asking you to predict which of those assumptions are true and which are false. Then I will give you a chance to discuss, in groups, any examples you have observed in your own teaching. To end, there will be a discussion about what changes we can or should make to improve our teaching.

Conferences and Events

  • Supporting Postgraduates who teach Mathematics & Statistics, by Joe Kyle and Michael Grove, University of Leeds, 2012 Oct.
  • Workshop on innovative e-assessment, University of Leeds, 2014 Sep.
  • Sigma Network Tutor Training, University of Sheffield, 2014 Oct.
  • PRiSM Launch Event, Pedagogic Research into Mathematics and Science, University of Leeds, 2014 Nov.
  • How Hard Can Mathematics Be?, by Peter Neumann, Yorkshire Branch of the Mathematical Association, 2015 Jun.
  • North West and North Wales sigma networking event, Liverpool John Moores University, 2015 Jun.
  • CETL-MSOR Conference, University of Greenwich, 2015 Sep.
  • Teaching Away Day, Univesity of Leeds, 2015 Dec.
  • How is Mathematics Taught in China, by Katherine Greenhalgh, Yorkshire Branch of the Mathematical Association, 2016 Feb.
  • Sigma Network North East and Yorkshire Hub Meeting, University of Leeds, 2016 Feb.
  • LMS Education Day, London Mathematical Society, 2016 May.
  • Focus on…Learning Connections, Leicester Learning Institute, 2017 Apr.
  • Discovering Teaching Excellence, Leicester, 2017 Jul.
  • Foundation Year Network Annual Conference, Warwick, 2017 Jul.
  • Use of Microsoft Teams in Teaching, Learning and Teaching Seminar, Leicester, 2018 Mar.
  • Discovering Teaching Excellence, Leicester, 2018 Jun.
  • Horizons in STEM HE Conference, Hull, 2018 Jun.
  • Foundation Year Network Annual Conference, Nottingham, 2018 Jul.

Summary of Experience

I have a range of different teaching experiences:

  • Volunteering for STIMULUS, in which I helped at a local secondary school once a week.
  • Running 1st-year tutorials at Leeds.
  • Volunteering for the ‘Maths Drop-In’ at Leeds.
  • Private tuition. Online (with EliteIB, TheProfs and Spires) and in-person. A-Level mathematics, IB mathematics, STEP, undergrad and masters. The most interesting student I had was a 50+ year old Masters student who has experienced homelessness and is in-and-out of mental hospitals.
  • Lecturing Foundation Year Maths at the University of Leicester.
  • Teaching assistant and teaching lead for ML4Good camps.
  • Facilitating weekly discussion for BlueDot.

Published items