Ms. Elizabeth Oldham

After decades in which there has been little focus on the teaching and learning of programming in schools, the topic has returned to prominence. In some countries, attempts are being made to balance the teaching of ICT skills, and/or using ICT in teaching and learning, by providing curricular opportunities for students to learn to program and to develop their computational thinking skills. This is the case in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, in both jurisdictions, there are concerns about the readiness of teachers to teach the relevant courses so that students reach an acceptable level of skill and understanding for national certification. "The Programming Studio," a collaborative project between Queen's University Belfast and Trinity College,addresses this issue. The chief aims of the project are to document the levels of programming expertise and readiness among teachers likely to be interested in teaching programming courses, and to allow a pilot group of teachers to experience programming as a "digital literacy" by mastering appropriate programming language(s) through games-based learning.

The project involves investigating the Mathematical Identity of cohorts of student teachers and others who are, will be, or may be involved in mathematics teaching. The chief aim is to propose an efficient and effective protocol by which third level mathematics educators can explore the Mathematical Identities of their students, with a view to improving the teaching and learning of mathematics. The project is a partnership between mathematics educators at St. Patrick's College (Drumcondra), Stranmillis University College (Belfast), Trinity College Dublin, the University of Limerick, and the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (Dun Laoghaire). A colleague from NUI Galway is acting as a consultant.

Investigation of the effect of introducing calculators into the Junior Cycle Mathematics syllabus and the Junior Certificate examination

There is a pressing need to support teachers in assessment of skills developed through engagement in problem-solving and problem-posing tasks. The Mathscify project addresses this. The project team and collaborators are building a repository of tasks (on the website https://www.mathscify.org/), for each of which there will be resource material for students and teachers; the approach is underpinned by the principles of Universal Design for Learning. The teachers' materials will provide rubrics and other assessment materials for measuring and recording attainment of fundamental skills as students progress along a learning continuum for each one. The skills identified for inclusion reflect those used in cross-national studies of mathematics and science education, and are relevant for all STEM areas. The website content is or will be available in different languages, reflecting participants' different countries of origin.