Education Technology
Article | July 27, 2022
After almost two years of disruption due to the pandemic, our ongoing recovery has highlighted the value of embracing change and working much more flexibly than before, refusing to give up at the first hurdle and a willingness to work together to achieve a common goal. These transferable skills are becoming ever more important for us to thrive in our increasingly automated world, and they are skills that can be developed and embedded through the medium of mathematics.
Fluency, reasoning, and problem-solving are the three foundations of our mathematics curriculum. By valuing them all, we will ensure that our future workforce has the confidence and skills to work together much more effectively to solve problems, overcome hurdles, and sustain our recovery. Let’s begin with fluency. Although AI is becoming increasingly prevalent, benefiting both our social and working lives, we still need number skills, perhaps now more than ever. Too many high-profile technology projects have failed due to basic mathematical errors. We need our education system to nurture the types of number skills needed in industry, especially a much greater focus on using and applying number skills. We must encourage students to develop their confidence in estimating quantities and a willingness to check calculations, even when they’ve used a spreadsheet or calculator.
From NASA’s disintegrating space probes to trains that don’t fit their platforms and submarines that are just too big, the tech world is littered with avoidable, costly mistakes. Acquiring number fluency means developing a ‘feel’ for numbers so that we can easily spot when something is not quite right; the NASA probe disintegrated due to a simple error converting units, the trains would not fit because no-one checked the platform sizes, and the submarines needed refitting due to an error entering spreadsheet error. Each of those three were incredibly costly, totalling millions, if not billions of pounds, but they were all avoidable too. We must nurture a willingness to estimate and develop a ‘feel’ for numbers, known as ‘number sense,’ alongside the more traditional approach of performing more formal calculations when needed. After all, few people head to the shops armed with a pencil, squared paper, and a ruler in readiness to calculate their change at the cash register.
We need to value number sense and rethink our expectations of the primary curriculum.
Encouraging a different approach towards the teaching and learning of mathematics may also help to address the gender imbalance in the subject. If you filled a room with a hundred math professors, the chances are that less than ten would be female. However, female mathematicians have played key roles in the fight against COVID. Mathematical modellers such as Professor Julia Gog, based at the University of Cambridge, drew on her research as an adviser to the government’s SAGE committee.
Nevertheless, even though more students study A-Level mathematics than any other subject, few female students choose to apply to study mathematics at university. My own research with female A-Level candidates reveals their preference for careers which help others and contribute towards a better society.
However, they often do not appreciate how studying mathematics might help them to realise their dreams by helping thousands, if not millions, of others through research on climate change, medicine, and networks.
We know that the gender gap in mathematical performance starts at a young age, and researchers have suggested that the changing expectations in the curriculum as students progress through their schooling might dissuade girls from continuing to study mathematics at a higher level. At primary school, pupils are expected to master written calculations such as long division and long multiplication to achieve ‘age-related expectations.’ However, to progress further, they also need to be able to solve problems, and this seems to be the point where female students lose out.
It has been argued that the switch from being rewarded for learning procedures to solving problems favours boys over girls, and the persistent gender gap in results for higher-achieving primary pupils appears to add weight to that argument. Effort are being made to encourage more females to consider studying mathematics, including the Maths 4 Girls project which organises school visits from female role models and the careers arm of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications which organises poster competitions to encourage more school students to think carefully about studying mathematics, both projects which I support. Yet more needs to be done.
Our curriculum and assessment system are designed to value number sense, estimating and problem-solving skills and perhaps rethink the time schools devote to rehearsing written calculations. Otherwise, we risk overlooking the huge potential of our current female students to contribute and build on the work of their predecessors, including Florence Nightingale, Mary Boole, Ada Lovelace, and Julia Gog, among many others.
To continue our recovery from COVID and rebuild our economy, we must embrace the potential of mathematics for developing and embedding the skills and attitudes that our students will need to thrive in their increasingly automated world: a willingness to "play" with numbers, estimate and check their answers; an enthusiasm for solving problems and working together; and an understanding that it’s OK to get stuck sometimes. We can overcome the hurdles that we face by working together as a team.
Read More
Education Technology
Article | August 4, 2022
The pandemic has only increased businesses’ acceleration towards digital transformation and underscored the power of technology and computer science skills to help overcome economic disruption across industries.Download our free computer science guide for an overview of key computer science learning opportunities, from cloud computing to cybersecurity, in today’s unusual economic landscape. Whether you want to explore computer science for the first time, advance your career, or earn a degree, there’s a path at edX for you.
Read More
Education Technology
Article | October 7, 2022
When you think of a playground what do you think of? Swings, slides, roundabouts?
Many years ago, these would be constructed without too much thought gone into the risks to ordinary children falling or losing grip. I have several siblings. We all sustained injuries at the local park. One fell off the high slide and lost her front teeth. One slid forward on the slippery rocking horse and had stitches in her chin. Another caught her foot on the roundabout as she tried to jump off when another child was pushing it too fast for her liking. I could go on.
Today playgrounds have to meet the European safety standards and safety surfacing has to be installed under swings, slides, and roundabouts. This must adhere to the current standard for impact absorbing playground surfaces.
It is good that playgrounds today meet these safety standards.
Yet. If your child is unable to walk, how will they get on that swing, that roundabout, that slide?
More and more children with disabilities are being educated in mainstream schools. Parents no longer think that a disability should stop their child from accessing the local playground. What is available to students with disabilities in these playgrounds?
Special schools have had to cater for students with disabilities when planning a playground but do ordinary schools? It is an act of discrimination if a child with a disability cannot enjoy being out on the playground as much as the able bodied child.
There was a time when the only wheelchair swing took ages to set up for a child to enjoy just 5 minutes of swing time. Anbakgard in Denmark have designed a wheelchair swing that takes just two minutes to set up and has additional seating for peers to join the experience. To see one in action go to https://YouTube.be/vh4NSOTULdA.
There are roundabouts that include a safety space for wheelchairs and slides that allow adults to accompany children on them for support. There are outdoor trampolines specifically for wheelchairs. There are birds nest swings that allow students with mild physical disabilities more space to enjoy the vestibular sensory stimulation. There are many sites that now provide play equipment to suit all kinds of needs. One such site is https://www.gljones-playgrounds.co.uk who provided our school with a lot of its play equipment.
There are climbing walls specifically geared to wheelchair users. Visit http://www.rockclimbingcentral.comto see the benefits to building muscle strength, endurance, strength, agility and flexibility.
When our children have missed out so much on play during the pandemic it is important that we provide all children with their right to play by ensuring that playgrounds everywhere are inclusive.
Read More
Article | August 25, 2020
Across the country, local networks known as Education Innovation Clusters (EdClusters) are bringing together partners and resources to meet urgent needs and envision a new future for teaching and learning. Many of these efforts are rooted in long-standing partnerships across sectors and institutions. As COVID-19 disrupted the lives of students, educators, and families earlier this year, EdClusters sprang into action, leveraging their capacity and reach in ways their networks were uniquely ready to do. Their collective efforts are meeting a range of needs—from internet access to devices to social-emotional supports. As schools prepare for uncertain and complex reopenings, we turn to Kansas City and Rhode Island for powerful examples of community in action.
Read More