ICTM Conference
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Draw of the Cards (Kim Carnes)
Topic: Seminars
So, came back from Turkey yesterday (arrived home at 7pm) ... the conference in Istanbul was great ... met a lot of people who I was able to network with - particularly people from Australia from a range of universities - so that was good.

Hung out with some of the Turkish people as well and some people from the US (mainly from Tuscon!).

I'm not sure how great all the seminars were but was able to meet some of the researchers whose papers I've read, particularly Pat Cretchley and Leigh Wood. It just so nice to actually meet these people. Love these international conferences - because most of the work that is being done on CAS is occuring in Australia and you really don't meet much of these people in the UK.

Critical Reader
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: My Eyes Can Only See As Far As You (Charley Pride)
Topic: Meetings
So, Hossein Z. just came into my office and showed me my probation report and asked me if I sent it to him, and I said probably Anne F. did, and then he asked me do I know why she would have sent that to him .. and I looked a bit confused and said "Didn't James asked you to be a critical reader?" ... and then he said oh yes but that was such a long time ago.

So, then he asked me if there was anything I wanted him to look at in particular (and then my mind went blank - I was like a deer caught in the headlights - I had no clue!) - so then, told him perhaps my methodology (because I thought that seem reasonable and it was my weakest chapter)... and then he asks me what in my methodology (well he got me there!) - so I said my tasks for linear programming (and I think he was going to say that no one does linear programming but then he taught better of saying that :P) ... and asked me what kind of students it was suppose to be and I said university students and he wanted to know if it was at the OU and I said no it could be students at universities and told me about a LP component he was writing for the business school and asked him if that was BM240 and told him about BM240 ... and I also told him about the tasks I need to create which I have no idea about as yet (its a bit difficult to explain something where I don't even know what his frame of reference is i.e. where I should begin) - he looked a bit confused and ask me if it was for data collection and I said yes - I guess my interpretation of methodology was methods :D and his was more theoretical (big problem already!).

Anyway, there goes my first impression to my critical reader - not a very good one ... :D ... hope he doesn't hold it against me. But Rebecca said the least CREET could have done was send a covering letter indicating what it was and what was expected from them. Well ... I thought that would have been standard operating procedure because how do they know how to be a critical reader?

Supervision meeting
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: Wild Child (Enya)
Topic: Meetings
Yesterday afternoon I had my supervision meeting, and strangely enough all three of them were there. Now that was surprising since I only expected Doug and James.

Anyway, we got to talking about how to developed the mathematical tasks to see what occurs when using the black-box and white-box software. I told them, I had spoken to Jonathan and he had suggested checking for the strategies that student's may employed. James was all so pleased to hear this, he was going to say something I imagine on strategies but I pre-empted him because he was saying probably it might not be sufficient just to check and see if students get these tasks right or wrong ... so just jumped straight in and told him about the strategies.

So, told them about the article I was reading by Artigue (2003) about the profiling of strategies she spoked off by a doctoral student. There are five profiles that a student may undertake when using software and mathematics. These profiles were theorist (references, interpretation and analogy), rationalist (paper&pen, inference and proof), scholastic, tinkerer (calculator, investigation and accumulation) and experimentalist. Got to find the original work by Trouche (2000) to further understand these profiles. But thought these might something be good to look at - although James suggested I could develop and determine my own strategies.

I was also reading a paper by Galbraith (2002) this morning and there is also a profiling of attitudes of students towards technology and he reported on some of these - originally done by Goos et al (2000) - I've got to find that paper. There is four: technology is considered as the master, servant, partner and extension of yourself. Like this idea as well but think it is two different approaches need to see how they can be combined.
(Anyway got to go now - its my birthday and meeting Tina in 6 mins - got to run!)

Probation Report
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: You Needed Me (Anne Murray)
Topic: Thesis writing
So, the probation report is off!!! I submitted it on Friday - so have no reason to think about it until July 17th comes my way. Unfortunately, not very proud of it, don't think I have any clear argument or rather a very critical literature review. It is lacking severely in those areas - but needed to get it off - so not too proud of it. I think I might cringe when I read the final version before my mini-viva.

Anyway, got the CALRG and the ICTM conference coming up and I have to prepare the presentations for those.

Probation Proposal again :D
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Kasto Mazza (Parineeta)
Topic: Thesis writing
So, have a supervisory meeting this afternoon - don't think I'm going to have much favorable comments on it - it was bit of a rushed job. I'm still hoping it would come together - but it is taking forever to gel in my head exactly what I'm doing - but I think with each of the patchy jobs I keep doing it seems to get better and better ... not great as yet. I'm still not sure about my rationale and purpose and whether the literature review is critical enough and helps support my argument. I think one of my problems is that I loathe to drop out any of my literature since I spent so much time writing it up ... but I think I have to make the decision and drop the unnecessary bits that are no adding to my argument but still uncertain what my argument is at the moment - I think perhaps that is why it is so patchy.

Let's see if I can identify my argument clearly here. I think my argument is although there have been studies into how students learn with mathematical software, there hasn't been much work done on how students learn with black-box and white-box software. Right got that. So, that is one part of the argument. The other part is that the belief that how students learn with software differ between disciplines. Yeah that is one other thing. I think I further want to establish that the use of a software in the learning and teaching process may also vary between the disciplines. And that some software may be used in a white-box or black-box manner.

So, probably I think I want to establish how is software used in the teaching and learning linear programming, that is, how it is transformed into a learning tool in the different disciplines ... yeah something like that - and what this transformation entails (i.e. going from black-box to white-box etc - any exploration). Also, whether this transformation impacts on the learning of the student.

My problem how are you going to see the transformation of these learning tools as it is by remote observation and only one student? Would I have to take into account the collaborative aspect? I'm not quite sure what kind of data I will get to see this data - what is the transformation going to be shown? Getting more confused by the minute.

Probation Proposal
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Poor Shirley (Christopher Cross)
Topic: Methodology
Well, had a meeting with Doug yesterday about my probation report and it went surprisingly much better than I expected. But he did say my methodology was a bit thin. I need to improve that and decide my sample size etc.

Well what I did say was that I wanted to have some students and give them some tasks and interview some students ... but not sure how that would actually occur ... :)

However, I did say I had three pilot studies ... the 1st hopefully would be sent out next week if I can get one of the courses to agree with me to send of the questionnaire!!! I have no idea about numbers ... was thinking if I can get about 10-20 students to test each of the second pilot I might have something there. Well, got to think about tomorrow - just realise I have to send a place holder abstract for the CALRG conference!

Good and Bad Things with my survey
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: Drift Away (Uncle Kracker)
Topic: Data Collection
Well ... I finally got approval for my survey from the SRPP ... however it was with the condition that I ensure that the courses I want to survey do not want to survey their own courses later in the year and I'll obstruct that process. Whilst some course teams were delighted with what I'm doing and wanted to know my results others were not - and have not given me permission since they've taken it upon themselves to decide whether the questionnaire is appropriate or not for their students - so, I'm stuck there.

Actually one of the course team (I'm gonna call it one of the good ones) invited me over for a chat - and we discussed a lot of stuff of mathematics and computing and they were telling me of some course surveys they did about the use of computers in their course and they even gave me the results. It was great. One guy was really enthusiastic ... he gave me references and books as well. It was great knowing that people were interesting in my research.

Unfortunately on the the course team (one of the bad ones) - couldn't see the sense of sending the questionnaire to their students ... that got me thoroughly frustrated! That was on Thursday ...

U500 conference
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: The First Time (Freddie Hart)
Topic: Seminars
So, next week is the U500 conference ... and I'm presenting on the Wednesday. Slightly apprehensive of it this time, because this time around, I'm not as certain as I was last year on what I'm doing. Last year I pretty much knew, this year I'm still floundering around. And that keeps me anxious.

My presentation has something about software and linear programming, but it doesn't't even touch what I really originally wanted to do, which is look at steps in software. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that and relate it to this new direction I seem to be heading.

I really want to look at white-box and black-box software, but it seems that as if I'm looking at dedicated, generic and spreadsheet software instead. I think what is keeping me back is that I know that software may transition between black-box and white-box - it all depends on how it is use by the student or used by the teacher to present the work.

However, I have to keep in focus, that I have to do something that is 'doable' - even if it isn't what I do (well - I mean I still like my area and research - but would have liked to go extra and do the black-box and white-box). I'm still trying to see if I can squeeze it in.

I'm still being silently horrified with my methodology, because I don't know where to get courses, or students studying LP to help me out. Zsolt might be teaching LP in June in Michigan university, so probably he could help me out a bit (if I could figure what I'm doing!).

I still have the BM240, MU120 and M373 students to get something done with them, but not entirely sure...

There is the conception of mathematics questionnaire that seems a bit fascinating, I'm thinking that might relate to the preference of software (white-box or black-box). Coupland already did some research with that and software - but only used Mathematica ... with maths students ... probably I can expand that to be a class of software and be linear programming students ... don't know .... a bit stumped.

Meeting with Mick
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: I Don't Want to Wait (Paula Cole)
Topic: Interviews
So, went and meet Mick Bromilow yesterday to discuss linear programming and software. I thought perhaps he knew about linear programming in the UK and the OU, but as it turns out he is not in the linear programming research area - so, not able to network there. But he did share some light on the M373 course since he was part of the team that developed it. According to him, M373 (which had various versions before) was developed because they considered they should have an optimization course as part of the applied mathematics degree. LP used to be taught in a level 2 course but was removed to make more room for other applied maths like mechanics.

Mick indicated that although simplex is taught there are better algorithms now available such as the interior point method which students should be taught but believed that the simplex will continue as it forms part of most linear programming curricula.

He indicated that previously in-house software was created for LP, but because the need for continuous updates a commercial software was chosen - the reason for MathCad. Also, most of the students would be familiar with MathCad since they would have used it since the entry into their OU course (not to mention OU has a licence for it) - and hence made sense to do linear programming in this way. They developed a number of worksheets templates for the students and in these the students are able to solve the problem using the matrix method rather than the tableau method for formulating the problem for solving. The course is not concerned with the students being proficient at solving the linear programming by hand, but rather being able to set up large scale problems to be solved. Hence, the MathCad just requires the student for pressing F9 to solve the problem. There is however a window in which they can see how the calculations are occurring in the background, although students are required to know the terms pivot point, pivot row they don't actually need to know these for carrying out the computer solution. However, TMA questions may require the student to examine the background calculation window to describe what might be occurring.

The templates were developed by them and the LTS team to make sure they could be readable and understandable to the student.

He also indicated that as this is a maths course they weren't too concerned about the graphics side of the LP, as that is only a 2 variable problem - but it is taught to give an understanding of how solutions are found (I'm not quite sure if this is what he actually said - but I think so ).

Teaching and public understanding of science (bit of a rant)
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Making Love Out of Nothing At All (Air Supply) - Live Edition - doesn't sound so good
Topic: Seminars
So, went to this seminar on Thursday which was organised by the RSA (The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce) which was held in the Berill Building at 6pm. We had sandwiches when we arrived - which was good. Met and talked to someone from Rothamsted (I think) who was part of the media arm of Rothamsted. So, we talked a bit about agriculture and her experiences in Brazil. Looked up who it might be and I think she was perhaps Susannah Bolton (but not quite certain).

Anyway, there were three presentations, one by Bob Kibble from Edinburgh University on science education in primary/secondary schools. His presentation was very good - I enjoyed it immensely. One of the questions he was contemplating was why should we teach science as most of the students were not likely to go into sciences. His argument is that we should if not to learn science, but to learn the skills of science of using analytical skills and of things being repeatable, and for letting students being explorative. He, however, laments the fact that the exploratory science that students do during the primary school are most effectively 'killed' because of needing to learn the curriculum and getting a grade. I think what is he's trying to say that students perhaps have adopting a surface or strategic approach to science rather than it being deep. He sort of wants science to be more holistic in its approach i.e. integrated rather than separate.

Peter Atkins who did the next presentation on science in Higher Education. I was a impressed with him until he started speaking. After all, I did use his book during undergrad! But, his approach or outlook of teaching is too traditionalistic and he has some archaic ideas. He is still living in the era that students who opt to do sciences must be the cream of the crop. Which in fact may not be true (well I don't think so) - most students these days are strategic thinkers they are doing subjects that are easy for them to get the grade they want to enter university and get their degree no matter what it is in (a bachelors is one entrance to the business place) - as long as it is easy to get. Therefore students who are science inclined and find it easy (that doesn't make them bright!) - will choose the sciences and students who find the languages easy will do that. I tell you being straight up front - that I did sciences because they were easy - but some of those courses in social sciences are hard especially those that require analysing speech and words - nothing harder in the world than that and making sure it is a logical argument too! As for languages - I'm not good at them, so whilst the languages people are admiring the science students - I'm admiring them right back.

Atkins dared to imply that the only 'real' science there might be is 'chemistry'! He considered biology nothing more that a nature walk until biochemistry popped up (DNA discovery). Well, it is from biology is where the naturalistic research methodology developed, but I think this is where real exploration begins rather than with the scientific method. Indeed it is a method to make sure things are logical - I think in some cases it has a place - but the truth is - it really constricts a researcher in exploring. Instead all they do is change one variable at a time (which is scientifically correct) - but to consider it original research, these researchers keep changing the ranges of these variables to check out different things - now that's making it easy. There is no original thoughts - there is nothing enjoyable in that - and I can see why students are moving away from the profession. Where is the excitement?

I remembered that was what disillusioned me the most during the research methodology course in UWI - I couldn't begin to think that is what research had come to i.e. no real exploration of new ideas but copying of other people's ideas and only if someone was radically to contest someone else's work were there any real theories coming out. I think that's then I started to explore Kuhn's work - its too bad I only browsed it a bit rather than going into it. I think James will be horrified - I just read that Popper was a critic of Kuhn :D!

Anyway, I did pose a comment/ question to Atkins, in that I explained to him that I did thermodynamics during undergrad in both chemistry and physics, and how is it can a student integrate this as I've maintained in my mind two separate thermodynamics. I'm not certain if I was articulate as I should be ... but Atkins said it is right for Chemistry and Physics to teach this separately as they are different concepts from the different subjects. But truth in fact they're not - it is the same concept - and that is why a student is having fragmented learning - there is no way of providing far transfer of knowledge in the student.

Atkins (did get me a bit peeved - but he also made me laugh - because I was laughing with incredibility with the extent of his lack of new educational perspectives - he reminded me of grandpa his views of girls - if an equivalent should be made) - anyway, he was considering that the sciences were hard because they had to do maths and the truth is the maths he was considering they were doing were mechanical mathematics - it is just the application of a formula, this is surface learning and a near transfer skill. When Bob explained that in exams he want the majority of marks to be where the student is explaining how something might occur (like why shouldn't you put butter on a burn - i remember that question from a CXC biology exam - I loved those questions - they required me to explore and think) - that is using the students making a logical argument through words instead, Atkins thought that was cheating and perhaps easier?? (well my interpretation of his expression and what he said etc). Although, I think doing a discussion on something is much harder and it requires a lot more skills on the part of the student, this is actually getting the student to show that they may have had some kind of deep surface learning. Applying maths is a cinch, there is nothing hard about that. Once you get the concept that's it ... do the same problem over and over and over and over.

Well ... John Zarnecki's presentation was interesting, he spoke about the media and science. He was talking about how the media tends to dramatized science to make it seem appealing to the public and also twist it to suit their needs. Nothing controversial here.