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Philip Walker

P.Walker@leeds.ac.uk
Member of PRiSM

Philip WalkerPhilip is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Applied Mathematics at the University of Leeds and, from August 2017, Director of Student Education in the School of Mathematics. As a member of PRiSM, he wishes to build links with individuals in other schools, sharing experiences and to establish a more coherent understanding of teaching practices.

He was introduced to pedagogical research through his interest in investigating how computers and electronic technology can be implemented to improve teaching and assessments. He highlights the importance of focusing on pedagogical research to ensure that the education the university offers is as effective and good as possible, as being at the forefront of knowledge includes the teaching of a discipline to its students. He focuses on the effect of how students learn by completing set assessments.

He describes one challenge that persists in the teaching mathematics is the difficulty students find in communicating their reasoning in arriving at an answer. Therefore, in addition to working on electronic assessment, he has also worked on developing assessments within the foundation year that gave students the opportunity to improve their communication skills.