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A report launched today by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) has called for more support for biological sciences students who are either extremely able in maths or who may struggle with the subject.

The report, Perspectives from the UK and US on integrating mathematics into the teaching and learning of the biological sciences in higher education, concludes that some students were not prepared for the level of mathematics in their course curriculum. The research found that in the UK the vast majority of bioscience programmes accept GCSE maths and the resulting variability in maths ability makes it extremely challenging to support mathematically able students to advance to their full potential.

Students at all levels of ability could be better supported by more effective use of innovative teaching practices such as problem-based learning, group learning, classroom inversion, contextualisation of maths within biology, and cross-disciplinary student research projects.

Two-thirds of the US academics who responded to the report’s survey said their teaching approaches had changed towards more inquiry-based, active learning approaches, often moving away from the traditional lecture. In the UK a greater degree of interactivity was also desired, but the main method for achieving this was by the use of engagement technology such as ‘clickers’.

The report also noted that the move towards active and collaborative learning could have a positive impact on student retention, with students who were poorly prepared for the mathematics on their course more likely to drop out or switch courses.

Nathan Pike, co-author of the report and HEA Discipline Lead for Biological Sciences, said: “University teachers, researchers, employers, policy makers, and students all share the opinion that mathematical skills, and the ability to apply these skills within the biological sciences, are absolutely key.

“In this report we’ve compared recent UK and US initiatives to improve the teaching and learning of biomathematics and assessed the impact of these initiatives on the student learning experience. There is plenty to be learnt from comparing the differing higher education systems of the UK and the US and I look forward to sharing the recommendations with colleagues across STEM disciplines.”

The full report can be downloaded here.

Skills are critical assets for individuals, businesses and societies. Matching skills and jobs has become a high-priority policy concern, as mismatches, occurring when workers have either fewer or more skills than jobs require, may result in an underutilisation of existing human capital and result in job vacancies not being filled in. Since the global economic crisis, skills mismatch has become more prominent and many employers report difficulties in finding suitably skilled workers, even in economies with high levels of employment. In this context, this Report produced by the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda on Employment presents a set of policy recommendations to enhance the skills matching to labour market needs by building social partnerships. More...

By Joel Shapiro. Has distance education significantly affected the business and teaching models of higher education? Certainly. Is it today’s biggest disrupter of the higher-education industry? Not quite. In fact, the greatest risk to traditional higher education as we know it may be posed by competency-based education models.
Competency-based programs allow students to gain academic credit by demonstrating academic competence through a combination of assessment and documentation of experience. The model is already used by institutions including Western Governors University, Southern New Hampshire University, Excelsior College, and others, and is a recent addition to the University of Wisconsin system. More...

Experts from international organisations including ILO, Unesco, Unitar, the World Bank and universities, as well as country delegates, met at the 2nd Cedefop/OECD Green skills forum in Paris, on 14 February, to discuss how environmental policies can successfully be implemented in combination with policies for job creation and social inclusion.
The forum was opened by OECD Deputy Secretary-General Rintaro Tamaki. He underlined that ‘we need to share experience and cooperate in the creation of knowledge as we move from a high-carbon to a low-carbon society.’ More...

In the past months, Cedefop tested in 8 countries its revised employer survey instrument to measure changing skill needs in Europe and has explored the optimal survey sampling design. The objective of this meeting is to have a final review of the instrument and sampling design and discuss the recommendations for a full-scale implementation based on the latest results.

The participation in this event is restricted to the invited experts.