These are fully worked solutions to the 'Numeracy Professional Skills Practice Test 1'. The document has been designed to allow trainee teacher applicants to prepare for the Numeracy Professional Skills test. This resource has been contributed under a Creative Commons licence to the mathcentre Community Project by Dr Kinga Zaczek, Royal Holloway, University of London and reviewed by Frances Whalley, University of Hertfordshire. It is one of a series of 17 resources produced by the sigma Network Employability Special Interest Group.

A comprehensive collection of case studies, intended to assist you with the challenge of enhancing the basic mathematical skills of engineering or science students. These case studies focus particularly on diagnostic testing.

This is a practice test adapted from Department for Education practice tests. It has been designed to allow trainee teacher applicants to prepare for the Numeracy Professional Skills test. This resource has been contributed under a Creative Commons licence to the mathcentre Community Project by Dr Kinga Zaczek, Royal Holloway, University of London and reviewed by Frances Whalley, University of Hertfordshire. It is one of a series of 17 resources produced by the sigma Network Employability Special Interest Group.

A follow-up to the booklet 'Developing Graduate Skills in HE Mathematics Programmes', which offered exemplars of ways in which graduate skills had been successfully developed through curricular initiatives. Three projects reported here develop the earlier good practice - around employment awareness, presentation of written work and reflection and articulation of skills - and provide evidence that this can be transferred to new circumstances. Two projects develop maths-specific advice and curriculum resources around developing students' speaking and writing skills. This report was edited by Peter Rowlett. This report is not made available under a Creative Commons licence but is freely available to UK universities for non-commerical educational use.

The project Developing Graduate Skills in HE Mathematics Programmes collected a series of short case studies, each focused on specific graduate skills, providing examples of ways in which these have been successfully developed through curricular initiatives. This video is the introduction to a workshop disseminating the case study report by Jeff Waldock. This video is not made available under a Creative Commons licence but is freely available to UK universities for non-commerical educational use.

This Course Pack offers the resources from a course, titled Communication and Presentation Skills, which sought to teach students how to present numerate information, at an appropriate level, to various kinds of audience. The course sought to develop five key skills in particular: the communication of ideas through speech; the vocal skills needed to speak effectively; the verbal description of quantitative data; the oral interpretation of diagrams and graphs; and, engagement with the audience. The sessions involved active participation by the students, with teamwork an essential element. The materials for the Communication and Presentation Skills course were devised, written and delivered by Eileen Cunningham, Lesley Harper, Shamim Khan, Hendryk Korzeniowski, Gordon Blower and James Groves This resource is free for educational use at UK universities. It is not made available under a Creative Commons licence but is freely available to UK universities for non-commerical educational use.

The mathematics department at the University of Strathclyde introduced in 2001 a paper-based diagnostic test to test the elementary mathematics skills of their first year mathematics students.

Many departments of mathematics, physics and engineering now use some form of diagnostic test to assess the basic mathematical skills of new undergraduates [1]. Results reveal that a typical cohort consists of students with a diverse range of mathematical backgrounds and capabilities. Tests also help to identify those students who lack both confidence and competence and are deemed to be at risk of failing or dropping out in Year One. It is now commonplace for those teaching first year mathematics to be faced by an inhomogeneous student cohort and all are in accord that it has become almost impossible to teach them effectively together. It is against this background that streaming of first year undergraduate physicists into two more homogeneous groups has been introduced at the University of Leeds. The aim is to provide more effective teaching and mathematics support that will get students up to speed and mathematically prepared for their second year.

The authors have first-hand experience of supporting students with weak maths skills making the transition from School to University within a Business School. In this paper the authors will summarise the key messages and recommendations to emerge from the literature in the light of their own experiences and research findings. We will also give an overview of the types of open source software that are currently available for maths skills support in the UK, and consider ways in which such on-line resources might be utilised in order to encourage and enhance students’ development of maths skills in a Business School context. Cottee M., Relph A. and Robins, K. (2013) Supporting students making the transition from school to university– A national and local view of the maths skills crisis in the UK. http://library.iated.org/view/COTTEE2013SUP

The Transition Module is designed to audit the mathematical skills of incoming students and thereby design and implement appropriate teaching, learning and assessment strategies to ease the transition to university.

Ni fhloinn, E., Bhaird, C. M., & Nolan, B. (2014). University students' perspectives on diagnostic testing in mathematics. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 45 (1), 58-74. DOI:10.1080/0020739X.2013.790508 Many universities issue mathematical diagnostic tests to incoming first-year students, covering a range of the basic concepts with which they should be comfortable from secondary school. As far as many lecturers are concerned, the purpose of this test is to determine the students' mathematical knowledge on entry. It should also provide an early indication of which students are likely to need additional help, and hopefully encourage such students to avail of extra support mechanisms at an early stage. However, it is not clear that students recognize these intentions and there is a fear that students who score poorly in the test will have their confidence further damaged in relation to mathematics and will be reluctant to seek help. To this end, a questionnaire was developed to explore studentsâ?? perspectives on diagnostic testing. Analysis of responses received to the questionnaire provided an interesting insight into studentsâ?? perspectives including the optimum time to conduct such a test, their views on the aims of diagnostic testing, whether they feel that testing is a good idea, and their attitudes to the support systems put in place to help those who scored poorly in the test.

12 calculus questions, differentiation and integration. Useful for self diagnosis. Numbas resources have been made available under a Creative Commons licence by Bill Foster and Christian Perfect, School of Mathematics & Statistics at Newcastle University.