Prospective Primary Teachers’ Professional Noticing in Non-formal Learning Environments: The Case of a Mathematics Fair

Research around mathematics teachers’ professional noticing has been largely contextualised by the formal setting of the classroom. In addressing the lack of relevant studies in non-formal learning environments, this paper draws on student teachers’ observations within a Mathematics Fair, which was part of a mathematics methods module of a primary education undergraduate programme. Working in pairs, 64 student teachers designed interactive mathematical games which upper primary school pupils had the opportunity to play in an event having taken place at our university. In this study, we analyse student teachers’ individual reflective essays written after the Fair, where they discussed important, in their view, incidents and observations. Employing a thematic analysis approach, we identified four themes discussed by students: the task; learning; teaching; non-formal environment. We conclude with the implications for teacher education and suggestions for future research.

Enhancing the student experience through sustainable Communities of Practice

Introduction: The switch to online off-campus teaching for universities worldwide due to COVID-19 will transform into more sustainable and predictable delivery models where virtual and local student contact will continue to be combined. Institutions must do more to replace the full student experience and benefits of learners and educators being together. Methods: Our centre has been delivering distance blended and online learning for more than 40 years and has over 4000 alumni across five continents. Our students and alumni come from varied healthcare disciplines and are at different stages of their career as educators and practitioners. Whilst studying on the programme students work together flexibly in randomly arranged peer groups designed to allow the establishment of Communities of Practice (CoP) through the use of online Discussion Boards. Results: We found Discussion Boards encouraged reflection on learning, sharing of ideas with peers and tutors, reduce anxiety, support progression, and enable benchmarking. This led to a highly effective student sense of belonging to each other, our educators, and the wider University, with many highlighting an excellent student experience and maintaining a thriving CoP within the alumni body. Conclusion: Despite being based on one large postgraduate programme in medical education, our CoP approach is relevant to any undergraduate programme, particularly those that lead to professional qualification. With our mix of nationalities, we can ‘model the way’ for enabling strong CoP’s to share ideas about best practice with a strong student and alumni network which can be shared across the international healthcare community.

The Moral Sciences Tripos and Cambridge Political Economy

The Cambridge Economics Tripos (an honours degree) was created in 1903 by detaching the teaching of economics in Cambridge from the Moral Sciences Tripos, a broad degree including logic, psychology, and politics and ethics. To understand why Alfred Marshall sought to detach the teaching of economics in this way we need to understand both the nature of this undergraduate programme of study, as well as the model that he sought to emulate: the Mathematical Tripos. This had been until mid-century the primary Cambridge qualification, and rather than a training in mathematics per se, its examination sought to foster a particular intellectual discipline. Students were trained in groups, usually by non-college private ‘coaches’, who drilled students in techniques with whose aid they might solve the questions put to them during several days of examinations. Good students became adept at the speedy selection of the appropriate technique and its application to a given problem. By contrast, the Moral Sciences Tripos was organised around the interpretation of set (canonical) books, and so did not foster this problem-solving approach.

Clinical Legal Education—A Robust Instrument for Attainment of Justice: An Indian Perspective

Legal education is to serve the purpose of creating well-versed and proficient professionals who can render the best legal service to the people and help them get justice. Moreover, it is also to produce law-abiding and well-informed citizens who can carry out their duties in their professional life (irrespective of the nature of profession) for maintaining the rule of law. Along with a very strong foundation of substantive law, law students must also be oriented to the application of law during their undergraduate programme. This goal is to be realized through clinical legal education (CLE), which was introduced with an aim of combining the theory with practice. It also helps inculcate a sense of social justice in law students, as they closely see the application of law in a real life situation; they realize how law benefits people; they get closely connected to the society; they learn professional ethics; they develop problem solving approach; they get immeasurable satisfaction and confidence in the power of law; and more particularly, they comprehend that law is the real robust instrument to ensure and secure inclusive justice in the society. CLE, thus, makes the legal education all-inclusive and wholesome by making law students the agents of social change and champions of justice. This research article argues that CLE is indispensable for the attainment of inclusive justice. It also gauges the state of CLE in India from this perspective. Lastly, the article offers a few convincing suggestions which need to be incorporated in the legal education framework of India in order to ensure the higher goal of attainment of inclusive justice in India.

Exploring selected factors that determine graduation times in an undergraduate programme

Introduction: Timely graduation is of colossal importance to students, universities, and other stakeholders. The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the time taken to graduate and to determine if pre-enrolment demographic and experiential characteristics of students are predictive of the aggregate grade point average. The secondary purpose of the study was to identify individual aspects between cohorts based on the time taken to complete the course. Method: The sample for this study included all students enrolled in the Bachelor of Health Science (Oral Health) program at the Auckland University of Technology from 2008 to 2016. The desensitized data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Results: The mean grade point average in the first year was lowest in the cohort that took five years to complete and highest in the cohort that took three years to complete. Each year’s grade point average was positively correlated to the next year’s grade point average. The level of prior education and work experience were predictive of the aggregate grade point average in those completing in three years (P<0.05) but not in those completing in four years (P>0.05). Conclusion: Pre-enrollment factors, level of prior education and work experience were predictive of aggregate grade point average in the cohort completing in three years but not in the cohort completing in four years.

Disputes in a Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers’ Programme: An (Im)Possible Narrative

Background: The curricula of the undergraduate programmes for pre-service mathematics teachers’ education have been debated (and disputed) in Brazilian academic communities over the past decades. Objectives: To investigate actions and disputes among mathematicians and mathematics educators which took place during the curricular changes and creation of the night undergraduate programme for pre-service mathematics teachers’ education at UFRJ. Design: Fictional dialogues were built to present and analyse data from individual interviews. Setting and Participants: Interviews were conducted with seven lecturers, five retired and two in office, who have played central roles in the institution or in designing curricula for the programme. Data collection and analysis: Data analysis and production were conducted through the re-storying methodology. Results: The dialogues indicate that the modification in the priorities of the group of Mathematics Education teachers at the IM-UFRJ moved the faculty away from the discussions that culminated in the curricular changes of 2001 and 2008, either from the understanding of what the laws and resolutions said, or in internal spaces for debate, such as the Fundão Project. Conclusions: Our analysis indicates that disputes take place in a landscape that transcends teachers’ education and reaches more complex political and epistemic terrains, partially related to tensions between mathematics and mathematics education, but that cannot be reduced to this binarism.

John Marion Thoday. 30 August 1916—25 August 2008

Professor John M. Thoday, ScD, FRS, was Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge from 1959 until 1983. In that position, he was influential in establishing genetics as an integral part of the undergraduate programme in biology at Cambridge, and he developed an active research programme that explored genetic processes underlying quantitative genetic traits, natural selection in sympatric populations and genetic variation in human and other populations. In more than 125 publications, he brought insightful attention to questions that had often been overlooked by others. Some of his most significant work explored the genetic basis of quantitative traits and thus pioneered approaches to understanding the mechanisms behind responses to selection. This helped set the stage to uncovering genes in the multiple-gene systems that determine polygenic characters in fields from medicine to agriculture. Other key work focused on disruptive, or diversifying, selection as a potential mechanism for populations to respond to adaptive challenges in nature. When his study of disruptive selection began, many in the field believed it was not even a possible process. In his many roles, John Thoday was a mentor who stimulated an open, respectful and intellectually rich academic environment for the Department of Genetics at Cambridge and for his field of creative activity.

Peer marking of OSCEs within a UK pharmacy undergraduate programme - student views

Objective: Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) assess competencies in undergraduate pharmacy students. Students in senior years marked those in the year below during a formative OSCE. Method: The study explored the views of students who marked and had been marked by peers via an online survey. Ethical approval was obtained. Results: 115 (36%) of markers and 114 (35%) of those who were marked responded. Most students who were marked agreed that it was a positive experience and were comfortable receiving feedback from their peers; there were varied views on student marker consistency and how they were not equivalent to staff markers. Student markers felt prepared and confident giving feedback and marks. Markers felt it was a beneficial experience. Working collaboratively with another marker and assessing more than one student was valuable to allow discussion and inform their own OSCE. Conclusion: Overall, students supported this initiative, which has now been embedded into the undergraduate programme.

A Usability Testing of a Higher Education Mobile Application Among Postgraduate and Undergraduate Students

<span>The advancement in technology has produced innovative applications for educational purpose. Numerous higher education applications have aroused in recent years. Therefore, it is essential to strive for a high usability application. This study presents a usability evaluation of a higher education mobile application in Universiti Kuala Lumpur. The study was conducted using usability testing methodology to measure three usability factors which are effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. A number of 64 participants from postgraduate and undergraduate programme were subjectively selected. The result reveals that the application is effective, efficient and meet the users’ satisfaction on its usability, with the satisfaction rate of 82.15%. Several issues with regard to the application were highlighted by the respondents during the usability test. Therefore, despite of positive results, several recommendations with regards to improve the usability of the application were proposed in this study.</span>