Developing Maths Skills for Degree Entry

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Developing Maths Skills for Degree Entry

• Fred Maillardet and Les Mustoe

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Mathematics and Engineering - uneasy bedfellows

• Necessary evil or essential bedrock?
• Who should teach the mathematics?
• Too dangerous to leave to the mathematicians in
  universities
• Too dangerous to leave to engineers
• Shared responsibility is the key

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What to teach and how?

• Who determines the syllabus?
• How much rigour?
• To embed or not to embed
• Confidence and competence
• Mathematics must be developed coherently

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Origin of EPC Maths Working Group

• EPC concern over falling maths standards from the
  early 1990s
• Others have shared our concerns
• The maths problem (IMA in 1995) and
• Crisis in maths (UCAS in 2002)
• EPC specific concerns
• algebraic manipulation,
• basic geometry and trigonometry, and
• general fluency in handling number
  concepts

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Maths Working Group

• MWG formed in 2001
• To improve the general standard of
  mathematics
• of entrants to university engineering
  degree
• courses
• Initial membership
• EPC, IMA, LMS, HoDoMS, HEA ESC, IoP,
• Deans of Science, UCAS

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The New Engineering Diploma Level Three

• EPC expressed general support for the need to
  reduce the academic-vocational divide
• However, now confused by the reference to
  Academic Diplomas !
• Diplomas designed to lead to work or
  apprenticeships or further study..EPC focusing
  on the latter

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Initial concerns

• EPC was concerned when the details were first
  published in 2007 re
• The maths content
• Teachers ability to deliver
• The level of real industrial support

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Maths Content Principal Learning

• Mathematical Techniques and Applications for
  Engineers is only 60 glh covering
• Algebra
• Geometry and Trigonometry
• Calculus
• Statistics

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Maths Task Group

• EPC and ESC formed a special Maths Task Group to
  try to address these issues
• MWG membership increased to include RAEng, NCETM,
  MEI, EDDP and QCA
• The Task Group quickly reached a consensus on
  what was required

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Unit proposed

• An additional unit based on the Loughborough
  University Foundation Course
• This course was designed for students without A
  level maths who wish to progress to study
  engineering at degree level
• The subsequent degree performance of students
  taking this course has often exceeded A level
  entrants

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Unit length and coverage

• Unit is 180 glh (in addition to the Principal
  Learning Mathematics of 60 glh)
• Applied Specialist Learning i.e. optional for
  those wishing to progress to study engineering at
  degree level
• Coverage broadly similar to A level

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Topics

• Mathematical Models in Engineering
• Models of Growth and Decay
• Models of Oscillations
• Functions
• Geometry
• Differentiation
• Integration
• Linear Algebra
• Statistics and Probability
• Algebraic Processes

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Applications orientation

• Teaching maths in the context of applications is
  seen as critical
• Exemplars are being developed for each maths
  topic to illustrate real engineering applications
• Each exemplar is supported by a relevant
  industrial company e.g. JCB, Rolls Royce,
  Thales, NPower.

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• ..\My Documents\EPC Maths
  WG\JCB_Dieselmax_Power_D5.doc

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Exemplars

• Real problems are more challenging for students
  (and teachers!) compared to traditional maths
  questions
• .but solving real problems gives a sense of
  achievement leading to increased enthusiasm
• Could help overcome the cant do attitude all
  too prevalent in students (and parents!)
• www.raeng.org.uk/education/diploma/maths/default.h
  tm

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Exam Structure

• Part 1 2 hours
• 8 10 compulsory questions
• Part 2 1.5 hours
• Context is pre-released
• 4 questions testing applications ability

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Exam Pilot trial 1

• 17 students from 5 universities studying
  Foundation Years sat the pilot examination
• Students more comfortable with substitution
• problems and thus found Part 1 easier
• Part 2 confirmed students unease with real
  problems despite the pre-release. Excess of info
  found to be as confusing as lack of info!

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Exam Pilot Trial 2

• Use of technical language challenging
• e.g. rate of change for differentiate
• sketch the relationship between for
• plot the graph of
• Time elapsed, Datum
• MEI Further Maths Network could provide the
  support needed for both students and teachers

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Conclusions

• Real engineering applications could make maths
  more attractive to a wider audience
• More support is needed for teachers if this
  change is to succeed
• The New Engineering Diploma offers an opportunity
  to widen participation

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Final conclusion

• The development of the ASL unit in the Advanced
  Diploma has shown how cooperation between
  mathematicians sympathetic to the needs of
  engineers and engineers sympathetic to
  mathematics can yield a good result.

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Developing Maths Skills for Degree Entry

• Thank you for listening
• f.j.maillardet_at_brighton.ac.uk
• l.r.mustoe_at_lboro.ac.uk
• www.epc.ac.uk