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ALM is an international research forum bringing together researchers and practitioners in adult mathematics/numeracy teaching and learning in order to promote the learning of mathematics by adults.
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ALM Bulletin: July 2024
I hope this newsletter, although a little delayed, brings back some great memories for those who were able to attend ALM 31, either online or in person, and gives others a taste of the stimulating presentations and discussions that we enjoyed. The experience of meeting in small clusters, some in a hybrid format, was unusual but the efficient technological arrangements, excellent presentations and enthusiasm of the participants all contributed to the success of this innovative venture. I am very grateful to everyone who was involved in the organisation of the conference to make it run so smoothly and to all the presenters who provided us with so many new ideas to think about.
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I am excited to now be embarking on a second year as ALM Chair and delighted to be working again with such a supportive and skilled group of trustees. You can read more about the changes to the trustees in this bulletin or on the website. Although some of us will be enjoying a summer break in the next few weeks, we are looking forward to another virtual seminar series in the autumn, to further issues of the ALM International Journal and to exploring other ways of extending the work of ALM through new or existing partnerships. We will say more about these, and about our next annual conference, in future bulletins.
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Reflections on ALM31
Here are some short reflections from two people who attended ALM 31 but in different clusters. We hope they give everyone a taste of the rich discussions that took place and a sense of the similarity of experiences within an ALM community that is dispersed across the world.
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“After the inspiring ALM-30 conference in Ireland last year, I participated this year in the hybrid ALM-31 conference. In the European cluster, six members were in Lund while me and a few others joined online from (the comfort) of our homes. Of course, I missed the casual interactions with other ALM attendees during breaks and enjoying some Swedish treats. On the bright side, my colleague and I could chat privately about how to use the newly proposed ideas in our university without bothering anyone else.
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The keynote speakers were inspiring. Dave Tout pointed out that context is crucial because it captivates interest, connects math to real-life scenarios, enhances visual understanding, and prepares people for practical use of mathematics. I believe using context will benefit children and adult learners with different learning styles, who do not benefit from traditional teaching methods. The presentation from Brooke Istas touched me. She revealed that, even among math and numeracy educators, some have faced negative experiences in math classes. Her story made me reflect on how many people will have had negative experiences and how these experiences shape their lives. Eabhnat Ní Fhloinn's presentation got me excited about the possibility of establishing a math support center at our university.
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The other presentations and discussions continued to inspire. Iddo Gal's conclusion about the scarcity of published research on adult numeracy education sparked an idea: why not collaborate within ALM to publish more? As a first step, I wrote a comment on the conference Padlet to connect with others from the ALM network. This resulted in the creation of an online writing support group. This group, made up of writers with different levels of experience, plans to meet every 2-3 weeks to give feedback on each other's writing. If you're interested in joining to both learn and share your knowledge, please get in touch with me.”
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Marieke Bor – de Vries (The Netherlands) – European cluster
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“It was the first ALM conference I attended. However, I referenced several papers from previous conferences in my PhD thesis. The conference reiterated the importance of adult numeracy education. Being from South Africa where our students often come from rural areas with poor schooling and inadequate numeracy skills, it was reassuring to hear that our problem is not so unique. The (global) phenomenon of inadequate numeracy skills is unfortunately not addressed at most higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. The assumption is that school mathematics prepares students to enter HEIs prepared for the quantitative nature of a range of fields of study, including ICT. My interest is the importance of numeracy for novice programming students in particular. The lack of numeracy skills seriously hampers their problem-solving abilities when starting to program. Thank you again for the rich experience and sense of community which made me feel welcome!”
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Dr Carla Coetzee (South Africa) – Ireland/UK cluster
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ALM31 Proceedings
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Those who presented papers at ALM 31 should have already received an email from Trude Sundtjønn (Norway) about revising their abstracts and submitting them for publication in the conference proceedings. These proceedings will be open access and made available through the ALM website. Abstracts need to be transferred to the template provided and may be revised or extended but should be submitted by September 1st 2024.
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Annual General Meeting
Our Annual General Meeting took place on July 3rd 2024. You are welcome to read the minutes of the AGM, which are available on the ALM website, see the following link.
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Ten nominations for trustees were received and all nominees were elected. ALM would like to express a special thanks to Lisanne Heilmann who has stepped down as a trustee after great efforts for ALM both as membership secretary and organizer of ALM's online conference in Hamburg during the pandemic. Two new trustees have been elected, namely Trude Sundtjønn (Norway) and Marc Jorgensen (USA). The whole list of current trustees can be seen on the website, see the following link.
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The future plans for ALM were discussed during the meeting and all agreed to maintain the co-operation with ANN (Adult Numeracy Network) and NNN (The National Numeracy Network). Provisional plans for ALM 32 are in progress and an announcement will be made once confirmed.
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ALM International Journal - new articles
The ALM-IJ editorial team are pleased to announce that two new papers have recently been accepted for publication. These will be appearing on the website as ‘online first’ articles very soon and will later be included in a journal issue:
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Digital Role-Playing Games as a Novel Approach to Learning Mathematics: A Quantitative Analysis. Evgenia Anagnostopoulou
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Making sense of journalistic COVID-19 data visualizations: An in-depth study of two adults’ visual-numeric literacy. Anders Wiik and Pauline Vos.
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Congratulations to the authors for their research and hard work preparing these papers.
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CERME 14 in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, February 2025
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CERME 14 will take place in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, February 4-8th, 2025 and will provide a great opportunity to meet with others who are interested in mathematics education. ALM members may be particularly interested in attending the Thematic Working Group TWG7: Mathematics for Work, Society and Personal Development: Lifelong Learning. You can find further information on the CERME 14 website but if you are thinking about submitting a paper, please note that the deadline for paper and poster proposals is September 15, 2024.
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ICME-15 in Sydney, Australia, July 2024
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The International Congress on Mathematics Education is a large international conference that takes place every four years. Several members of the ALM participated in ICME this July and made presentations. It would be lovely if someone who attended could report back and write a short piece for our next bulletin – could anyone volunteer please?
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Are you interested in hosting a future ALM conference?
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The ALM trustees are keen to spread ALM conferences around the world and would welcome new partners for future conferences. If you might be interested in hosting an ALM conference in the future or would just like to have a chat about what this might involve, please contact Diane Dalby at chair@alm-online.net.
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Future bulletins
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We hope that you are enjoying reading the ALM bulletin. The editors would be delighted to have any contributions or ideas about future articles from ALM members. If you have news from your part of the world or other information that may be of interest to our international community then please do get in touch with Lena Lindeskov (lenali@edu.au.dk) or Linda Jarlskog (linda.jarlskog@lund.se)
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Privacy Policy
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We do not send advertisements. We do not send data to third parties. Your membership data are stored offline. You can always ask to have your data removed permanently by sending a request to the membership secretary.
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