Will the Centre Hold

1
Will the Centre Hold?
UMTC 2004

• Joe Kyle

2
Introduction
3
What Next? - Then and Now

• 1975 - Adapting University Mathematics to Current
  and Future Needs
• 1976 - Mathematics Curricula and the Future
• 1977 - Teaching Methods
• 1978 - Assessment
• 1979 - Using, Learning

4
What Next?

• How University Mathematics should Adapt?

"Improvement in Education, especially technical
and vocational education, is urgently required if
Britain is to compete with overseas competitors"
Duke of Devonshire Commission on the
Universities, 1873-6
5
Curriculum matters

• By and large, theres not much wrong with the
  conclusions of 1976.
• Ignoring extraneous detail and hobby horses,
• the general aims sound just as valid today.

6
Curriculum matters

• By 800 AD, the theoretical basis for medieval
  education was to inculcate 7 disciplines
• trivium grammar, logic and rhetoric
• quadrivium arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and
  music.

7
Curriculum matters

• By 800 AD, the theoretical basis for medieval
  education was to inculcate 7 disciplines
• trivium grammar, logic and rhetoric
• key skills
• quadrivium arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and
  music.
• subject-specific skills

8
Curriculum matters

• The extreme atomization and arithmetization
  of the curriculum under the current regime of
  modules, levels and learning outcomes goes too
  far.

Either it must become more flexible, particularly
for the needs of mathematics ,or it will be
replaced within twenty years.
9
Technology

• Contrast, e.g. The Mathematics Education into
  the 21st Century Project (e-delivery)
• versus
• recent work in York, Sheffield, Birmingham and
  elsewhere on exploiting the full power available,
  for example with AIM, CABLE projects. (e-learn
  ing)

We have only scratched the surface.
10
Face-to-Face Tuition

• Will increasingly command a premium place in the
  market.

Already the unique aspects of live face-to-face
tuition are being studied, documented and sought
after by our customers.
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Face-to-Face Tuition

• Learning from software has merits (i) a course
  is
• self-paced, (ii) there are no missed classes,
  (iii) the student can try things.
• But the give-and-take of human interaction is
  central to the learning process that dynamic is
  lost when a Pentium chip does the teaching.

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Face-to-Face Tuition

• Among other qualities, a good teacher
• shows the students how to read the subject
  matter
• sets and adjusts pace material to the
  audience
• uses voice, pauses, gestures, and knowledge to
  communicate
• repeats with altered emphases
• sets a standard for what it means to be educated.

13
Bologna Declaration

• The potential power of the student as consumer

In 13th c. Bologna any teacher who wanted to be
away from the city for a few days had first to
secure the written assent of his students.
N Housley, The University in the Middle Ages and
Reformation
14
Research Teaching

• Learning Teaching strategies tell us
• the student learning experience is informed and
  enhanced by the University's commitment to being
  a research-led institution.

15
Research Teaching

• Learning Teaching strategies tell us
• Activities contributing towards the achievement
  of this goal include the exposure of students to
  teaching delivered by staff active in research

Experience tells us otherwise.
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Research Teaching

• "To discover and to teach are distinct functions,
  they are also distinct gifts, and not commonly
  found united in the same person."

Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University, 1852
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Overseas Players

• A healthy mix of cultures is one of the great
  benefits of HE
• But, as with cricket, the balance is critical
• And RAE forces may be distorting the equilibrium

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Purpose

• If every mathematics graduate left university
  with a sound understanding of A-level
  mathematics, the virtuous interaction between HE
  and school/college has a chance of coming back to
  life.

19
Purpose

• Thus mathematicians should focus first on
  
  - which is, after all, one of higher
  educations most important obligations.
• Notices of the AMA, Sept. 2004

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Purpose

• Thus mathematicians should focus first on the
  mathematical preparation of teachers - which is,
  after all, one of higher educations most
  important obligations.
• Notices of the AMA, Sept. 2004

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What Next?

• Recover the virtuous loop?

schools
HE students
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Virtuous Figure Eight?
HE staff
HE research
HE teaching
HE students
Schools
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Context

• The way that we train and compensate school
  teachers is a throwback to a slightly more recent
  time when many teachers were unmarried women. The
  feeling was that they needed little more than a
  subsistence living after a few years they would
  marry and that would be the end of that.

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Context

• Starting salaries for school teachers today have
  remained dreadful. Perhaps most important of all
  is that teachers get so little parental and
  societal support. They are actually beleaguered
  in their efforts to teach anything of substance.

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Context

• Teachers are among the most important and
  influential members of our society, ... they
  should be paid as well as a dentist or an
  engineer. We should aid them in every way that we
  can.

Krantz, Notices of the AMS, Oct 2001
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Will the Centre Hold?

• Recommendation 6.12
• There should be a National Centre for Excellence
  in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM)
• and a network of Regional Mathematics Centres
  (RMCs) - local communities embracing schools, FE,
  HE, and others
• Smith Inquiry, 2004

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Will the Centre Hold?

• By March 2005, there will be a National Centre
  for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics
  (NCETM) and initiatives to build capacity at
  school level through sustainable local networks
• DfES Response to Smith Inquiry, 2004

28
Will the Centre Hold?

• Things fall apart the centre cannot holdMere
  anarchy is loosed upon the world
• William Butler Yeats

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Thank you for your attention!

• The End