Odd Petter Sand, University of Oslo, will speak about his work as a PhD student on the use of programming in mathematics education in the Pedagogical seminar at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences.

Abstract: Computing (such as programming) has revolutionised the way mathematicians and scientists work, and has also changed the way we teach mathematics and science. However, relatively little is known about how the changes to teaching impact students' understanding.

To learn more, we designed teaching experiments and interviewed first-year university students. In these interviews, we found rich examples of the ways in which students use mathematics and computing together, including what helps and hinders them in making sense of what they do.

One of our main findings is that we saw certain patterns in students’ use of mathematics and computing that may support their understanding. Additionally, we present three tutorials that we designed for this purpose, and share what we learned in the process.

About the speaker: My research is about learning in programming and mathematics. I am very fond of teaching and supervising, and I want these activities to be research-based and result in student understanding. I got my Ph.D. in education research at the Centre for Computing in Science Education (CCSE), a centre for excellence in education at the University of Oslo, Norway. I have also worked as a software developer, mathematics teacher in upper secondary school, and at the university's IT department.