847 research outputs found
Teaching social work in times of change
Social Work, a profession with explicit academic and practice links to social policy, is undergoing profound change and transformation. ( DOH 2009) As part of this ongoing critique, the teaching of social work is being
increasingly questioned by the general public, employers and government.
Over the last two years innovative research at the University of Lincoln, jointly undertaken by a team of academic researchers and former social work students, has been analysing the efficacy of teaching methods and
university support systems. In particular, the effectiveness of the social work undergraduate degree programme in equipping graduates for the
demands of front line practice is being evaluated.
The paper draws on key themes identified by the research and shares findings relating to;
• Good practice in teaching and learning; including what students value most from lecturers and how academics can best support students
• The use of students in research; opportunities and pitfall
Making sense of ‘mastery’: Understandings of a policy term among a sample of teachers in England
This paper considers the term ‘mastery’ as used in mathematics education across different times and locations. A case study from England is offered to show how these pedagogical approaches morph as they move from one territory to another, in the context of each territory’s history. The paper first examines English policy documents, research and published curricula for their use of the term. This suggests that ‘mastery’ in England has become associated with mathematics teaching practices used in high-performing territories such as Singapore and Shanghai (China). But the efforts to transport approaches predominately from East Asian sources, against the background of an existing Western set of meanings for the term, has led to considerable inconsistency in interpretations and definitions of the ‘mastery approach’. A subsequent case study of eight teachers involved in developing mastery approaches in England explores how they make sense of ‘mastery’ in the context of these inconsistent messages. We suggest that this generates challenges for teachers tasked with implementing mastery approaches, with the danger that anything can be done in the name of mastery
What is the object of the encapsulation of a process?
Several theories have been proposed to describe the transition from process to object in mathematical thinking. Yet, what is the nature of this ''object'' produced by the ''encapsulation'' of a process? Here, we outline the development of some of the theories (including Piaget, Dienes, Davis, Greeno, Dubinsky, Sfard, Gray, and Tall) and consider the nature of the mental objects (apparently) produced through encapsulation and their role in the wider development of mathematical thinking. Does the same developmental route occur in geometry as in arithmetic and algebra? Is the same development used in axiomatic mathematics? What is the role played by imagery
Conditional inference and advanced mathematical study
Many mathematicians and curriculum bodies have argued in favour of the theory
of formal discipline: that studying advanced mathematics develops one’s ability to reason
logically. In this paper we explore this view by directly comparing the inferences drawn
from abstract conditional statements by advanced mathematics students and well-educated
arts students. The mathematics students in the study were found to endorse fewer invalid
conditional inferences than the arts students, but they did not endorse significantly more valid
inferences. We establish that both groups tended to endorse more inferences which led to
negated conclusions than inferences which led to affirmative conclusions (a phenomenon
known as the negative conclusion effect). In contrast, however, we demonstrate that, unlike
the arts students, the mathematics students did not exhibit the affirmative premise effect: the
tendency to endorse more inferences with affirmative premises than with negated premises.We
speculate that this latter result may be due to an increased ability for successful mathematics
students to be able to ‘see through’ opaque representations. Overall, our data are consistent
with a version of the formal discipline view. However, there are important caveats; in particular,
we demonstrate that there is no simplistic relationship between the study of advanced
mathematics and conditional inference behaviour
Emissions and energy efficiency on large-scale high performance computing facilities: ARCHER2 UK national supercomputing service case study
Large supercomputing facilities are critical to research in many areas that
impact on decisions such as how to address the current climate emergency. For
example, climate modelling, renewable energy facility design and new battery
technologies. However, these systems themselves are a source of large amounts
of emissions due to the embodied emissions associated with their construction,
transport, and decommissioning; and the power consumption associated with
running the facility. Recently, the UK National Supercomputing Service,
ARCHER2, has been analysing the impact of the facility in terms of energy and
emissions. Based on this work, we have made changes to the operation of the
service that give a cumulative saving of more than 20% in power draw of the
computational resources with all application benchmarks showing reduced power
to solution. In this paper, we describe our analysis and the changes made to
the operation of the service to improve its energy efficiency, and thereby
reduce its climate impacts
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