mathematics – ��ճԹ� I Championing Mathematical Sciences for Australia’s Advancement

Schools struggle as maths, science teachers in short supply

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:14:15 +0000

Herald Sun Education Reporter, Suzan Delibasic, has reported on new data by the Australian Education Union revealing more than two in five Victorian principals say maths and sciences classes are not taught by teachers qualified to teach the subject.

The article features commentary by ��ճԹ� Director, Professor Tim Marchant, who��said the lack of supply of maths teachers in Australia was a “significant challenge”.

“All the states and territories and the federal government really need to work together to encourage more graduates into the teaching profession to teach mathematics,” Prof Marchant said.

“The percentage of out-of-field teachers is much higher in��Australia than other countries and that is a challenge as��well in where we need to support the teaching profession to build up their qualifications to teach mathematics.”

‘Worrying’ STEM teacher shortage with pressure felt in rural and remote schools

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 06:56:35 +0000

��ճԹ� commentary has been included in an ABC Online report on Australian teacher shortages.

Digital Reporter Antonia O’Flaherty, reports:

“Almost half of Australian school principals report teacher shortages, with more than half of those managing schools in remote locations and three-quarters in very remote areas, according to data from the Australian Education Union (AEU).

Key points:

Data from a union survey shows��47 per cent of school principals have experienced��teacher shortages��in 2020
More than 70 of the schools surveyed employ science and maths��teachers not fully qualified in those subjects
Nationally, teachers say reducing the workload would help retain the workforce

It comes after years of Australia’s declining mathematics performance in international benchmark tests such as the��Program for International Student��Assessment (PISA).

��ճԹ� (��ճԹ�) Director Tim Marchant said the declining mathematics performance was a complicated, multi-faceted problem.

Professor Marchant said it was partly a problem of the way society valued mathematics and its career paths as well as students being taught by out-of-field teachers.

“The number of math teachers is not high enough. The supply of teachers is challenging, so there’s a broad set of issues affecting our PISA results,” he said.

��ճԹ� Congratulates Professor Emeritus Doreen Thomas on Queen’s Birthday Honour

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 02:30:35 +0000

��ճԹ� congratulates Professor Emeritus Doreen Thomas, who was recognised for her significant service to tertiary engineering education and research, and to women, in this year’s 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Professor Thomas’ work has spanned the fields of mathematics and electrical and mechanical engineering over her 40-year career. She was Head of the School of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Associate Dean Research and Research Training, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics.

��ճԹ� Director Professor Tim Marchant said the recognition reflected the cross-disciplinary impact of mathematics and statistics on Australia’s STEM pipeline.

“Doreen is an outstanding advocate for women in mathematics, engineering and STEM. We are delighted to see a member of the mathematical community acknowledged in this way,” he added.

Professor Thomas has contributed to ��ճԹ�’s Research and Higher Education program as a conference speaker and is on ��ճԹ�’s Advisory Panel. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and a Fellow of Engineers Australia.

��ճԹ� congratulates all Australians honoured in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours for their contributions, leadership and impact across the community.

The full list of 2021 Honours is online .

Sum of all fears: Why Australia’s maths problem is getting worse

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 00:57:26 +0000

A report by Jordan Baker, Education Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Australia has a maths problem in its schools. The performance of the country’s students has steadily declined since global maths literacy tests began almost 20 years ago. By 2018, Australian 15-year-olds were a year behind where the same age group was in 2003, and three years behind those in the top-performing country, Singapore, when tested on how they apply the maths skills they’ve learnt. Amid the hand-wringing that followed the latest results (in late 2019), education ministers pointed to the revision of the national maths curriculum as their solution.

But curriculum is just one piece of the puzzle. Australia has a chronic shortage of maths teachers; one in four year eight students is taught by someone who was not trained in the subject, compared with one in 10 internationally, and the least experienced teachers tend to end up in the schools where expertise is most needed.”

Jordan also refers to the joint statement issued by maths organisations including AAMT and ��ճԹ�, calling for problem-solving to be central to how maths is taught.

Maths wars: the great divide

Sun, 30 May 2021 02:12:07 +0000

Rebecca Urban, National Education Correspondent at The Australian, has reported on proposed changes to Australia’s maths curriculum.

Leading up to the release of the draft curriculum, and following a leak of some draft documents, the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, the ��ճԹ�, the Australian Academy of Science, and the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia issued a public statement calling for problem-solving to be central to how maths is taught. According to the group, teaching maths content was no longer sufficient.

1 in 4 Australian year 8s have teachers unqualified in maths — this hits disadvantaged schools even harder

Tue, 25 May 2021 00:58:40 +0000

has reported on new analysis revealing almost one in four (23%) Australian year 8 students were being taught maths in 2018 by teachers whose major qualification was in a field other than maths.

The analysis of Australia’s participation in the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) — an international assessment — was released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

��ճԹ� (��ճԹ�) analysis also warns that 76% of students will be taught by an out-of-field maths teacher at least once, and 35% of students twice, in the first four years of high school.

ANU-ITER Research Training Scheme

Thu, 20 May 2021 07:26:25 +0000

The Australian National University (ANU)��has teamed up with the to offer an ITER-aligned research training scheme to attract talented research students.

Discipline fields span mathematics, physics, computer science, engineering and energy economics. Projects will be guided through by ITER Science Fellow Professor Matthew Hole, and/or ITER Organisation staff, with a special topics course “The Science of Toroidal Magnetic Confinement” offered to bring students to the forefront of the field.

Who can apply?��

Students applying for PhD scholarship and/or admissions
Existing ANU PhD students (less than 9 months in) who join the project of activity
International research masters students, who are on-track to join the ANU for a PhD (must have ANU supervisor commitment to stipend)

Prospective applicants are invited to send an expression of interest to Professor Matthew Hole via email at matthew.hole@anu.edu.au, who will provide regular updates on when the scheme commences this year.

Travel support is available for students to attend training at ITER or an ITER-relevant lab.

For more information, visit the ANU-ITER Research Training Scheme website .

What is ITER?

ITER (“The Way” in Latin) is the world’s largest fusion experiment.

In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world’s largest tokamak – a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars.

The experimental campaign that will be carried out at ITER is crucial to advancing fusion science and preparing the way for the fusion power plants of tomorrow.

ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. And ITER will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials, and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity.

MATRIX hosts research program – Women in Geometry, Analysis and Topology

Michael — Wed, 12 May 2021 23:46:43 +0000

MATRIX will host Australia’s first all-women residential research program in the mathematical sciences.

This research program, titled: Women in Geometry, Analysis and Topology, is led by Julie Clutterbuck (Monash University), Melissa Tacy (University of Auckland) and Vanessa Robins (The Australian National University).

The program is a week-long meeting to foster new local collaborations, deepen existing ones, and above all create space and time for women to get research done.

Research projects of focus include:
• High frequency harmonic analysis
• Quasiconcavity for elliptic equations on manifolds
• Computational topology
• Welded tangles
• Dynamical systems and symmetry groups

Joint Statement on Proposed Maths Curriculum: Why Maths Must Change

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 02:00:41 +0000

Mathematical Sciences Leaders honoured by Australian Academy of Science

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 02:23:12 +0000

Six outstanding mathematicians and statisticians have been recognised by the in the 2021 honorific awards.

Professor Cheryl Praeger, Professor Mathai Varghese, Dr Kevin Coulembier, Dr Vera Roshchina, Professor Christopher Drovandi and Dr Janice Scealy are among 24 of Australia’s top scientists to be celebrated by the Academy for scientific excellence.

The Academy presents its annual medals to recognise outstanding contributions to science by researchers from the early stages of their careers to those who have made lifelong achievements.

��ճԹ� (��ճԹ�) Director, Professor Tim Marchant, congratulated each awardee for being recognised as research leaders and for their significant service to the mathematical sciences.

“We are delighted to see six mathematicians and statisticians recognised in this year’s honorific awards. Each recipient has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the mathematical sciences in Australia, and globally, and is a true champion of the discipline,” Professor Marchant added.

��ճԹ� congratulates all awardees on their much-deserved recognition.

2021 Mathematical Sciences Awardees
More:

2021 Inaugural Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture: Emeritus Professor Cheryl Praeger, University of Western Australia

Professor Cheryl Praeger’s work on the mathematics of symmetry has been in the vanguard of a mathematical revolution caused by the classiﬁcation of the ﬁnite simple groups, the atoms of symmetry from which all ﬁnite groups are built. She has elucidated the internal structure of these simple groups, and driven research on applying their immensely powerful classiﬁcation to study symmetric structures.

Professor Praeger has developed a theory of quasiprimitive groups which, via her innovative ‘normal quotient method’, established a new paradigm for working with symmetric graphs and exploited the simple group classiﬁcation.

Professor Praeger demonstrates an extraordinary ability to foster and inspire others, supporting women, advocating for mathematics in schools, and promoting mathematics in emerging economies.

2021 Hannan Medal: Professor Mathai Varghese, Adelaide University

Professor Mathai Varghese has made highly influential contributions to the field of geometric analysis, which relates geometric, analytic and algebraic properties of (possibly infinite dimensional) manifolds. Among these are his co-inventions of Fractional Index Theory and Projective Index Theory that have��received international recognition for explaining the mystery of the analytic counterpart of the A-hat genus. His recent joint work extending the Fractional Index Theorem to infinite dimensional loop spaces is also of immense significance.

His joint body of work proves the conjecture that fundamental quantization commutes with reduction in the noncompact case. Also seminal is his joint work on twisted analytic torsion, where an analogue of the Cheeger-Muller theorem is proved, establishing the equality by using a new combinatorially-defined twisted torsion. A catalyst for much activity in the area is his joint work formulating the magnetic gap-labelling conjecture, which labels the spectral gaps of certain magnetic Schroedinger operators on Euclidean space. Evidence for the validity of the conjecture is given in 2D, 3D and for principal solenoidal tori in all dimensions, which is itself a breakthrough.

2021 Christopher Heyde Medal: Dr Kevin Coulembier, University of Sydney

Dr Coulembier’s research is in the field of mathematics known as representation theory, which studies how abstract algebraic structures are manifested as the solutions to concrete systems of linear equations. This field retains a strong connection to its origin as the study of geometric symmetry both discrete and continuous, but more recently has developed far beyond this in tackling curved and infinite-dimensional spaces and arbitrary number systems. One of Dr Coulembier’s most important discoveries was of a way to detect the presence of the classical type of symmetry known as an affine group scheme in a more exotic setting known as a tensor category; this problem had defied the efforts of some of the world’s top mathematicians for almost thirty years. He has also solved several other important problems in infinite-dimensional representation theory, and has discovered new unified proofs of major theorems concerning the invariants of groups and supergroups.

2021 Christopher Heyde Medal: Dr Vera Roshchina, UNSW

Dr Roshchina is an exceptional mathematician and emerging international leader in the field of non-smooth optimization. Her main interest lies in finite dimensional geometry, more specifically, open problems that originate from continuous optimization and related fields. Some significant problems of this kind are in the geometry of polytopes, for example the polynomial Hirsch and Durer conjectures, critical point problems (Fekete problem, Sendov’s conjecture) and convex variational problems, such as asymmetric Newton’s aerodynamic problem. Resolution of these challenges is critical for making progress with numerous applications, from engineering and economics to medical research and data analytics.

2021 Moran Medal: Professor Christopher Drovandi, Queensland University of Technology

Almost every field of science requires sophisticated data analysis, and this in turn requires increasingly sophisticated methods for intelligent data collection and efficient computation. Professor Drovandi’s research contributes substantively to both of these areas. He has created new methods for optimal design of experiments that facilitate more cost-effective, data-substantiated decision-making. His innovative research into synthetic likelihood estimation have freed traditional constraints of likelihood-based statistical modelling and computation. His application of these methods to diverse problems in computational biology and exercise science have generated new insights for scientists and managers in these fields.

2021 Moran Medal: Dr Janice Scealy, Australian National University

Dr Scealy’s research focuses predominantly on developing new statistical analysis methods for data with complicated constraints including compositional data (vectors of proportions which sum to one), spherical data, directional data and manifold-valued data defined on more general curved surfaces. Her work has led to important new insights in a diverse range of applications. Her new flexible compositional model was applied to predict the proportions of total weekly expenditure on food and housing costs in Australia. Janice used a manifold data transformation to help identify geochemical processes acting on the surface of the Australian crust. She has developed multiple new statistical techniques for analysing noisy paleomagnetic datasets and her methods have led to improvements in uncertainty measurements of Earth’s magnetic field.

For more information on the 2021 awardees:

-ends-

About ��ճԹ�

��ճԹ� is the collaborative enterprise of Australia’s mathematical sciences. Established as an independent platform and advocate for the discipline, the Institute has built a record of national and international achievement as the recognised leader in delivery of services, activities and strategic initiatives across the mathematical pipeline. Working with key discipline, government and industry partners, ��ճԹ� delivers its mission through the delivery of activities and engagement under its Schools, Research, Higher Education and APR.Intern Programs.

For Interview:
Professor Tim Marchant, ��ճԹ� Director

Media Contact: Jo Piltz
E:��media@amsi.org.au
P: 0424 004 553

mathematics – ���ճԹ� I Championing Mathematical Sciences for Australia’s Advancement