Thursday, December 10, 2015

9:00 AM - 9:40 AM

The Shine Dome

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Overview

Jenny Koenig, partly sponsored by Western Sydney University

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Details

At a time when bioscience is becoming more and more quantitative, undergraduate bioscience courses are facing problems of new students being under-prepared. An analysis of the school and university curricula in the UK suggests that there is a mismatch and lack of understanding of curricula between schools and universities and a great degree of variability throughout the cohort. There is also a disconnection in the purpose of maths education in schools compared with universities which exacerbates the problem. This presentation will look at the transition issues and identify where many of the gaps are and explain how HE courses are seeking to overcome these problems through the use of context, authenticity and closer integration of maths in biology. The implications of recent UK government changes in the school curriculum will be discussed and a comparison will be made with changes in the biomaths curriculum in the USA.

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Speaker