| | | Lara Alcock
~ Giving Engaging Classes ~
Our first speaker of the day was Lara Alcock, a Reader in Mathematics Education at Loughborough University. She has written several mathematics textbooks, the latest being How to Think About Abstract Algebra. As the book title suggests, her unique selling point is her interest in the psychology and practicalities of how her students should go about learning the topic. So her book specifically tells the reader not only the material, but how to learn it. In her talk she went one stage further, giving us the benefit of her understanding of why she recommends learning in the way described. We were taken through the mechanisms at work in our brains; how best to get its information retrieval system working from long, rather than short, term memory. I was particularly taken with the forgetting curve which I have seen in the past but had forgotten about! Another aspect of her talk can be summed up with “It's not what you teach but how you teach it”. There was much audience participation and interaction over topics such as “What makes a good question?”, and “How do you ask a question?”. I learnt, have remembered, and continue to ruminate on her presentation, a testimony to the effectiveness of her methods!
| | |
