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Author Archives: Sally Jordan
Positive and negative feedback
Time to take a seasonal break from my rather tedious recent posts and to return to a reflection on feedback. The column ‘Feedback’ (what else!) on the penultimate page of the Christmas and New Year New Scientist special (24/31 December … Continue reading
Is the difficulty calculus or negative numbers?
As you’ll have realised, I’m currently analysing responses to questions on calculus. Maths for Science teaches just very basic differentiation and the position of the chapter on differentiation will be different in the revised edition of the course. In the new … Continue reading
Estimating the gradient of curves – variants behaving differently
The screenshots below show two variants of the same question. I should start by emphasising that the question is only used formatively – it’s on the Maths for Science Practice Assignment. The two variants behave very differently and the reason … Continue reading
Function or derivative?
The common student error in the question below is somewhat predictable – but I’m not sure why the students make the error that they do. Whilst 60.4% of responses are entirely correct, 21.7% select the three options that are actually the places where … Continue reading
Posted in derivative, gradient, mathematical misunderstandings
Tagged derivative, gradient, mathematical misunderstandings
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Unit conversions
As previously discussed, students aren’t great at giving correct units with their answers. However they have real probems with unit conversions! The unit conversion shown on the left is exceptionally badly answered, and a lot of students give up without even … Continue reading
Use of capital letters and full stops
For the paper described in the previous post, I ended up deleting a section which described an investigation into whether student use of capital letters and full stops could be used as a proxy for writing in sentences and paragraphs. We … Continue reading
Student engagement with assessment and feedback: some lessons from short-answer free-text e-assessment questions
Sorry for my long absence from this blog. Those of you who work in or are close to UK Higher Education will probably realise why – changes in the funding of higher education in England mean that the Open University … Continue reading
More errors in finding the gradient of a graph
Working yesterday on the chapter on Graphs and Gradient for the new edition of Maths for Science, I remembered the other student error that I have seen in iCMA questions. When asked to find the gradient of a graph like … Continue reading
Student misunderstandings
The second external meeting I attended last week, this time at the University of Warwick, was a meeting of the Institute of Physics Higher Education Group entitled ‘Conceptual understanding : beyond diagnostic testing’. The messages that I’ve come home with … Continue reading
Better by design
Although I’m still trying to find time to rewrite S151 Maths for Science (hence the previous posts about students’ mathematical misconceptions) I am also incredibly busy with other things. Last week I attended two external meetings, both excellent, so I’ll take … Continue reading
Posted in curriculum design
Tagged Alan Masson, currciulum design, JISC, REAP, University of Ulster, Viewpoints Project
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