Showing papers in "MSOR connections in 2014"

R: A language and environment for statistical computing.

Abstract: Copyright (©) 1999–2012 R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the R Core Team.

Students as Partners: Embracing the New Paradigm in Mathematics

Abstract: We consider a range of examples of students and staff working in partnership in UK mathematics degree programmes, drawn from a series of interviews with academic staff. These examples embrace a spectrum of activities across key aspects of the university mission – research, education, outreach – as well as governance. We identify also the elements that underpin many of these examples of effective partnerships: emphasising student action over the student voice; and ensuring there is a current impact on that student’s own experiences rather than a delayed impact that may benefit only future cohorts.

Interdisciplinary teaching of computing to mathematics students: Programming and discrete mathematics

Abstract: The teaching of programming to mathematics students has been a thorny pedagogical issue for many years. Should the mathematicians do it, or the computer scientists? Here we outline Bath's solution to the issue, which is "both, in close collaboration, to an interdisciplinary syllabus". This solution (using MatLab) is now in its fifth year, and is taught to 300 students/year. It has been received well by the students, and by other lecturers who can build with confidence on the skills learned in this course.

A-level Mathematics Module Choice and Subsequent Performance in First Year of an Engineering Degree

Abstract: The A-level Mathematics qualification is based on a compulsory set of pure maths modules and a selection of applied maths modules. The flexibility in choice of applied modules has led to concerns that many students would proceed to study engineering at university with little background in mechanics. A survey of aerospace and mechanical engineering students in our university revealed that a combination of mechanics and statistics (the basic module in both) was by far the most popular choice of optional modules in A-level Mathematics, meaning that only about one-quarter of the class had studied mechanics beyond the basic module within school mathematics. Investigation of student performance in two core, first-year engineering courses, which build on a mechanics foundation, indicated that any benefits for students who studied the extra mechanics at school were small. These results give concern about the depth of understanding in mechanics gained during A-level Mathematics.

Understanding the UK Mathematics Curriculum Pre-Higher Education – Where Are We Now?

Abstract: Copyright The STEM Subject Centres own the copyright to this guide so that they may use excerpts from it or update and modify as appropriate. However, the IPR rights are held by MEI (as authors), but the right is granted to the subject centres to use the text as appropriate to support their current and future activities. In any future version of this document it should be acknowledged that MEI produced the original.