The Teachers' Conference is open to mathematics teachers from London and beyond, as well as interested students age 16+. The event will take place in person at King’s College London (Strand Campus) on Tuesday 5 July 2022. The event will also be available online.
Schedule: Registration 1.30pm, talks to begin at 2pm.
Provisional programme:
Speaker 1: Dominic Yeo, King’s College London
"What makes an effective competition problem?"
Dominic's talk will discuss how problem-solving can get children excited about mathematics, and promote broader skills that complement the curriculum.
Dominic is a mathematician working in probability theory. Since May 2022, he is a Lecturer at King's College London, where he teaches students and carries out research. Dominic is also the academic director of the UK's mathematical olympiad programme, which runs national contests, mentoring schemes and enrichment events for the country's most enthusiastic school-aged problem-solvers, and sends UK teams to international competitions.
Speaker 2: Michael Nickl, Technical University of Munich
Assessing Students’ Proof Skills: Facilitating Teachers’ Assessment Skills in Early Teacher Education
Introducing students to mathematical reasoning and proof is one main aims in the national curriculum for mathematics. To support students best, their teachers should be able to assess their proof skills adequately, which, however, has been shown to be quite challenging for teachers. Training of teachers’ assessment skills in an application-driven way may help teachers to assess students adequately and may be especially enriching in pre-service teacher education. In this regard, simulations as authentic, yet digestible learning environments have proven effective for learning complex professional practices, such as teachers’ assessment skills.
This talk exemplarily features a simulation developed to facilitate pre-service teachers in assessing students’ mathematical proof skills. After presenting current views on assessment skills, mathematical proof skills, and learning in simulations, the developed simulation will be briefly introduced and analyses of empirical data will be discussed. In these analyses, a focus is given to the role of pre-service teachers’ learning prerequisites (such as prior knowledge) and, for example, how they influence the assessment of three different indicators of mathematical proof skills. Lastly, possible implications for research and practice are discussed.
Michael Nickl is doctoral student in Educational Psychology at Technical University of Munich (TUM). He studied mathematics and physics education at LMU Munich, where he worked as tutor and student research assistant and graduated in 2020. His research interests include digital learning environments, pre-service teacher education and, in particular, assessment skills of pre-service teachers. He is part of multidisciplinary COSIMA research group. He is also scholarship holder of Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation.
Speaker 3: Jenny Burdett, King’s College London Mathematics School
Challenge in Sixth Form Maths Lessons: some ideas and strategies for the classroom
Providing students with a planned sequence of challenging activities in the classroom can help deepen their understanding and build resilience as they tackle unfamiliar problems or meet new concepts. Additionally, the National Curriculum states that students “who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content”.
In this talk Jenny will discuss strategies and activities incorporating challenge which have been successful with sixth-form students at King’s Maths School. Jenny will also share ideas on ways to use widely available resources such as questions from TMUA, MAT and STEP papers in the classroom.
Jenny Burdett is an experienced classroom teacher who has taught Mathematics to sixth form students with a variety of ambitions and aptitudes in both the state and independent sectors. For the past seven years she has worked at KCLMS, where students have high prior attainment and a particular interest in the mathematical sciences. At KCLMS she co-ordinates the Y13 programme preparing students for MAT, TMUA and STEP papers. She also runs the weekly maths challenge published on the school’s website, which is intended principally for interested students in years 9 -11.