Mathematics and Didactics synthesis

Project introduction and background information

There is an enormous amount of research on mathematics education, both theoretical and very practical. Mathematics lecturers struggle to remain aware of advances in the scholarship of teaching and learning due to reasons which include their own research interests and the demands on their time.

Many students in technical (that is, not education science) programmes are interested in teaching. Students continuing in academic careers will teach, some to a limited degree, and many might teach a great deal. A standard technical degree programme offers no exposure to the literature on the teaching and learning of either mathematics or technical subjects.

Objective and expected outcomes

In this course students would choose a topic (a challenge) related to the teaching and learning of mathematics, carry out a targeted literature review of the existing scholarship related to the teaching and learning of this topic, and produce a ready-to-use teaching and learning resource for a teacher of that topic. Teachers of mathematics courses will provide suggestions, however, the student can choose a topic of their own, subject to approval.  Each project would have a “stakeholder” in the form of a lecturer with an interest in the chosen topic. The resource itself could be a worksheet, a literature summary, assessment design principles and so forth. The course would be overseen and taught by members of FERMAT, who have expertise in mathematics, statistics and engineering education.

The proposed course would “close the gap” between published research in mathematics education and the teaching of mathematics at the University of Twente. Students interested in education generally and/or considering a career in academia would be exposed to the vast field of scholarship of learning and teaching of mathematics, specifically mathematics in technical studies.

Results and learnings

The course has been fully designed. Since my time in the CBL T&LF cohort, it has won the UT Brinksma Innovation Grant (providing the pig image for this post). The course has won approval from many sectors, however it is so unusual that we are struggling to find a way in which it can effectively be run. So, even though the project is complete in the sense that the course is fully designed, I am marking it as "ongoing" on the Innovation Map because it has yet to be run. 

Practical outcomes

In summary: A course has been designed that shares some aspects of CBL, designed to help university teachers of mathematics connect to the the literature on the teaching and learning of their courses. The course has been so admired that it won a prestigious award, yet is so unusual that it has yet (2024) to be run. We are trying to change this...