Maths Week 2023
In 2023, Maths Week took place across Ireland from 14th to 22nd October. Maths Week has an eighteen-year history of encouraging everyone to engage with mathematics, see the mathematics in the world around them, understand the importance and usefulness of mathematics and, most of all, have fun. Throughout that journey, TU Dublin has played an active role in promoting and encouraging students to get involved. Almost half a million students signed up to take part this year and the School of Mathematics & Statistics and Access & Outreach hosted events on 16th and 18th October on its Grangegorman campus.
At these events were students from O'Connell Secondary School (North Richmond Street), CBS Westland Row, CBS Synge Street and CBS James Street. Over 100 students attended the events, played games, learned about mathematics, problem solved and even did some tricks.
TU Dublin was delighted to be joined by two guest speakers: Kjartan Poskitt (author of the Murderous Maths series of books) and Andrew Jeffrey.
A special thank you to everyone who got involved, the TU Dublin Access and Outreach office and the academic staff from the School of Mathematics & Statistics.
2nd Year Workshops
TU Dublin's Mathematics Outreach Junior Cert workshops took place in schools throughout the school year. These workshops aim to increase engagement with Mathematics. Workshops consist of two activities, the pizza slicing problem and electronic snapkits. The pizza slicing problem is finding the maximum number of pizza slices that can be produced from a single pizza using different number of cuts. Electronic snapkits teaches basic engineering, electronics and circuitry concepts to assemble electronic circuits on a simple “rows-and-columns” base grid. Both activities promote problem solving skills and encourages students to work together.
5th Year Workshops
The School of Mathematics & Statistics hosted ten secondary schools that visited TU Dublin's Tallaght campus in January 2024. Approximately 480 5th year students from Killinarden Community School, Mount Seskin Community College, St. Aidan’s Community School, St Kevin’s Community College, Deansrath Community College, St Setons College, Tallaght Community School, Colaiste De hÍde and Kylemore College visited between 9th and 11th January.
The 5th year students attended workshops consisting of a one hour Maths activity session followed by a one hour Engineering/Business/Advertising/Science/Media Production activity session. This allowed participants to get an insight into the range of courses offered by TU Dublin and some of the flavour of the third-level educational environment. Students were provided with refreshments in between the workshops in the main canteen, experiencing that important social aspect of student life.
A wide range of staff from TU Dublin contributed to the success of these on-site visits. Their commitment to widening participation is underscored by their active engagement in this outreach event and their enthusiasm is critical to the success of these on-site visits.
Teachers provided very positive feedback and feedback included:
“They enjoyed it, really good exposure to life on campus as well as the introduction to Maths topics.”
“They really enjoyed the visit. For the majority of students, it was their first time in a college. The two activities, digital media and biomed were a huge hit.”
“Students were delighted to see the college, realise how near they are to the campus. They thoroughly enjoyed the workshops in the second session.”
Easter Revision Course
TU Dublin ran an Easter revision course for Ordinary Level Leaving Certificate students. The two day course covered the solutions to previous year's exam questions, highlighted how to answer questions from previous years and encouraged attendees to practice similar questions. Over 70 students from different schools attended the revision course and gave very positive feedback at the end for example
“The tutors were always super helpful and always made sure everyone was on track.”