Welcome to RebelMaths!

Hello and welcome to RebelMaths!

Who are RebelMaths?

RebelMaths are two Mathematics Educators working in the Irish Higher Education Sector. We are always seeking ways to improve our teaching and see this blog as a great motivator to make us gather some of our thoughts and maybe share some things we have learned along the way.

What will the RebelMaths blog be about?

We will be writing about our current interests in the field of mathematics education and I'm sure that these interests will evolve as time goes on. Currently some topics we have on our minds include

E-assessment in Maths
Mathematics Learning Support
Vertical non-permanent surfaces and Visibly Random Groups
Peer Assisted Learning
Using edTech in the Maths classroom at third level
Finding great ways to teach Transposition

If you are interested in any of these topics, or other topics in Maths Ed then you might like to check in from time to time to see what we are on about.

Comments

Visibly Random Groupings

About six months ago I was browsing on twitter when I came across some Maths education people tweeting about #VRG, #VNPS and #thinkingclassroom. This led me down a wonderful rabbit hole of figuring out what these mysterious acronyms stood for. In today’s blog post I’m going to focus on #VRG which, I discovered, stands for Visibly Random Groups. Visibly Random groups is an idea put forward by Peter Liljedahl. Usually when it comes to carrying out some group work in the classroom there are two standard ways that the groups are formed. Either the students themselves pick the groups or the teacher picks the groups. When the teacher picks the groups, there is usually some underlying reason that the groups are assigned in this way. Perhaps the teacher wants to make sure that there is one strong student in each group. Or maybe the teacher wants to split up some students who tend to be chatty. When the students pick the groups they will tend to pick groups with their friends. In visib

5 reasons to use the Numbas e-assessment system for Mathematics

5 reasons to use the Numbas e-assessment system for Mathematics I first learned about Numbas when Julie Crowley approached me in 2015 to do some work as project assistant for the teame (Transitioning to E-Assessment in Mathematics Education) Project. My first job was to test the existing questions that had been developed for use in two Cork HE Institutions. After that we did a lot of work on making it easier for other institutions to use the resources we had developed. We wrote an implementation guide and tried to spread the word on how well this system can work. Numbas is a freely available e-assessment system for Mathematics that has been developed in Newcastle University. The Numbas system has a proven track record and a strong reputation (B. Foster 2012) and (Perfect 2015). It has been used in Cork Institute of Technology and University College Cork as well as at Newcastle University (B. Foster 2012) , University of Leicester, and Kingston University, London (D

Domino Logic Gates. Fun and hands-on.

Domino logic Gates: A hands on lesson on boolean logic One of my favourite classes this year was one where we built domino Logic gates. We were seven weeks into a first year maths course for computer science students. We had been working through sets then algebra and then Boolean Algebra. Each week we had one three hour lecture (horrific, right). In the seventh week there was the first in class test for the module and I knew that the students were going to be tired after doing the test and I needed to keep it "light" somehow for the remainder of the three hour period. I was also working with these same students in a module called Effective Learning and Development and from discussion in that module I knew that a few of the learners were the type of learner that liked to move and do hands on work (there was a time that I would have said they were learners with a kinesthetic learning style but I know that is all out of vogue at the moment). I had been thinking of ways to t

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