Category Archives: 3. Prof. Skills & Abilities

Why be a maths teacher when you can be a roller coaster designer!

After having inputs from lecturers from the medical school such as Dr Ellie Hothersall, it was interesting to find out just how much mathematics is used in jobs in the medical field. Beforehand I would have thought it was just sciences like biology and chemistry that were needed to become successful doctors and other medical professionals. However, mathematics is quite essential. Its essential for calculating medicine dosages and recording and interpreting things that are measured or monitored such as blood pressure and heart rate. Its needed to make sense of patients medical charts and to figure out their next steps. Actually, it is quite obvious the more you think about it, just how relevant and important maths is in this field. Yet, as i said, it may not be the first skill set people would associate with doctors. Well, other than doctors are perceived to be very bright therefore their abilities in mathematics, perhaps, can be presumed to be very good.

This led me to think about other possible jobs that require or involve mathematics that is not necessarily obvious. I did a little research to learn more and found some fun and interesting jobs that involve mathematics as well as discovering ones I didn’t even know existed, for example, an actuary. Apparently an actuary is responsible for interpreting statistics to determine probabilities of accidents, injury, sickness, death, disability, unemployment and retirement as well as loss of property from theft and natural disasters. In addition, they are also tasked with the job of designing insurance and pension plans. The maths being used here, then, include probability, data analysis and statistics.

Another career involving maths , which is also quite cool, is a roller coaster designer. Again, I think this is one of those jobs you didn’t know was an actual thing but clearly someone has to design them. I learned that these designers use maths to calculate velocity and to help them understand the mathematical properties of curves on a roller coaster and material strength. There were actually a lot of careers in the design and creative/artistic fields involving maths. Some of those include an animator, professional photographer, fashion designer and car designer. For an animator, trigonometry is very useful for rotating and moving characters. Professional photographers need maths to calculate depth of field and to determine the correct film speed, shutter speed and exposure. Fashion designers work with area, perimeter and diameter as well as calculating the amount and cost of fabric needed. Car designers find geometry essential to designing cars that look good and perform well. They also work closely with engineers who use calculus to design powerful and economical engines.

            

The inputs from the Discovering Mathematics module that were delivered by people outside of the school of education have made me think about how maths can be applied elsewhere in everyday life and jobs. Maths is not only useful for those pursuing a career as a maths teacher. It goes wider than that. I have a work colleague who is studying maths here at Dundee University and I have to admit that when she told me what shes studies, I replied with ‘do you want to be a maths teacher then?’  I assumed that, that is the only possible route for her when in fact its not. I know that because I have found a huge list of jobs and careers involving maths but has nothing to do with teaching it. Some are obvious, some not so, some sound exciting and interesting, and some I knew nothing about.

 

 

I love crisps

Today we had a language workshop focussing on poetry writing. I actually quite enjoyed it. I always liked poetry at school as it allowed you to be creative and have fun with words. Todays input provided me with lots of useful tips and ideas on how to approach poetry writing in the classroom. We participated in some activities today in the workshop and were given the opportunity to write our own list poem. The topic was food so I picked one of my favourites…crisps!

 

I Love Crisps!

 

Tasty ones like Frazzles,

Fizzy ones like Skips,

Melting ones like Quavers,

I love crisps.

 

Tangy ones like Monster Munch,

Cheesy ones like Wotsits,

Jazzy ones like Discos,

I love crisps.

 

Crinkle cut, deep ridge,

Baked ones, puffed ones,

Crunchy ones, crispy ones,

I love crisps.

 

Cheese and onion, salt and vinegar,

Sea salt and cracked black pepper,

Old favourites and new tastes,

I love Crisps!

 

Maths is all around me

Although I have always felt relatively comfortable and confident in my maths ability, I chose this elective because I felt the area I struggled with was knowing how to break key concepts down and teach them to children. However, so far, this module has taught me more about fundamental mathematics and how maths is actually everywhere!

It actually is everywhere! This module has made me think about where maths occurs in everyday life. There are the obvious ones like handling money while shopping or weighing out ingredients to bake a cake or being able to tell the time in order to show up to lectures on time. Yet, whenever I see flowers in a vase, pine cones on the ground or even cutting up a pineapple to use in a fruit salad, I never realised maths was involved. Not in the cutting itself, although there might be and I just haven’t twigged yet, but in the shape and make up of the pineapple. There is something called the Golden Ratio at work here. I will go into more detail about this in a blog about the Fibonacci Sequence. Ultimately, the lesson I learned was that maths is evident in nature.

This elective is also teaching me that maths is evident in art. I’ve always loved art and found it very expressive and free with no set rules or structures to it therefore at first I found it hard to grasp the fact that maths would be involved. I could understand its function in architecture but not pieces of artwork. However, through exploring tessallations and Islamic art, it was beginning to make sense and I was able to identify familiar mathematical shapes such as hexagons and pentagons. I also found these types of artwork were quite pleasing to the eye. This, again, relates to the golden ratio.

To be honest this module, at first, probably confused me more than it enlightened me. I thought I had a good understanding of maths but soon realised I only had good knowledge of formulas and how to use them to work out equations and problems. I can tell time, add, subtract, multiply and divide but never really knew what the fundamentals of maths were. This module is making me think of when and where maths is or can be used. Thinking about the clothes I put on in the morning; designers would have worked with measurements. Thinking about the car I drove to Uni; engineering is very closely linked with maths. Wondering if the architect who designed Dalhousie used the Golden ratio?