Organised by Professor William Reville, Public Awareness of Science Officer, UCC, the highly popular lecture series, commences on Wednesday, January 6th and continues weekly until March 10th 2010.  All lectures will be held in Boole IV Lecture Theatre.

The series begins with Mr Noel Brett who will discuss “The Problem with Mathematics”.  Studies reveal that many students leave school equipped with fairly limited numeracy skills coupled with a marked dislike for mathematics.  What are the factors that have contributed to this failure that affects a significant number of students?  Is the subject matter intrinsically impenetrable to all but an elite few students? Is innumeracy, or ‘mathematical illiteracy’, a consequence of poor quality teaching and not the result of the subject matter taught but rather the pedagogy used to teach it?

Project Maths is the latest initiative designed to teach mathematics in a way which promotes real understanding - is this also doomed to failure? This lecture will reflect on the mathematics syllabus and seek to identify inherent weaknesses and difficulties with a view to proposing strategies so that we may learn from the past (or be doomed to repeat it!).

Noel Brett has taught Applied Mathematics and Physics for almost forty years in both 2nd and 3rd Level colleges. He is Chief Adviser in Higher Level Physics with the State Examinations Commission and served for ten years as an External Examiner for Physics in the European Baccalaureate. He is currently the Project Coordinator for the newly established CIT/UCC Science and Technology Teaching and Learning Centre (STTLC) based in UCC.

The lecture will take place at UCC’s Boole Lecture Theatre 4 at 8pm on Wednesday, January 6th.

Admission is free, and as always, members of the public are invited to attend. See http://understandingscience.ucc.ie

Picture:  Mr Noel Brett

1277MMcS

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