On the afternoon of Wednesday 3 March 2021, we were delighted to deliver our Moving on with Maths event to A level students and their teachers in the East Midlands. The session was introduced by Stephen Wilkinson, AMSP’s Regional Lead for the East Midlands, who talked about applying for maths and other STEM subjects at university and gave information on which universities require admissions tests and interviews.
We were very fortunate to be able to welcome Professor Matthew Hubbard from the University of Nottingham and Dr Martin Greenall from the University of Lincoln. They talked about studying maths in higher education and the difference between A level study and what is expected at degree level. They also gave information about the support available to students in their departments and what they could expect when starting university. There was a question and answer session ran via Mentimeter (an interactive presentation app that allows real-time feedback), with students asking some excellent questions that were matched by the quality of the replies from both Professor Hubbard and Dr Greenall.
It was then time for students to get active with some problem-solving tasks based on AS level topics. This was delivered through Desmos and students were given hints when needed and the opportunity to apply some standard problem-solving strategies.
The afternoon was completed with the students having a taste of some university admission test questions (TMUA), again through Desmos which provided some fantastic answers from the students.
Although we were hit by the odd technical hiccup, we felt that the students had not only enjoyed the event but had also benefitted immensely from the afternoon. We hope to run another event involving other universities in the region so look out for the details coming soon.