Project title: Supporting trainee mathematics teachers in the use of subject specific software 

Partners: Sarah Yelling (Senior Lecturer, School of Education) & Sam Forrester (BA Hons Media Studies, School of Art and Media)

There are two courses within secondary mathematics education where students are taught subject specific software. They are introduced to several packages and although each has its own on-line presence and a wealth of tutorial material, these were not organised in one place or presented through the GCSE national curriculum.

Sarah: “I wanted to create something that would house video tutorials to provide my students with the necessary skills to use these packages but would also give them access to pre-created small single function programs known as applets. I knew I wanted to work with students on this project, and I wanted to produce something that would act as an initial store where students could co-create content.

I was paired with Sam, a Media student and he led with the idea of a website (using EduBlogs) and designed the look and feel of it. His knowledge of design and the student perspective were invaluable. Whilst initially this project was designed to increase the digital literacy of my students, we increased our own skills and digital literacy learning both WordPress and Panopto, and whilst I was familiar with the mathematics packages, Sam also had to learn those too.”

The draft website organises the “how to” videos and applets into the GCSE national curriculum strands and are presented through tables. The pages also contain embedded videos and applets that allow the user a brief glimpse of the websites collection.

You can find our website here:

About us | Hitchhikers Guide to Specialist Maths Software (brighton.ac.uk)

Contact Sarah for more information: S.Yelling@brighton.ac.uk