Dashboard – Circle Zone

Education:

Univeristy of Galway
Qualifications:

Junior Cert, Leaving Cert, Degree in Mathematics, Masters in Communications Systems Theory (the maths behind your phone!) PhD in Mathematics Education

About Me

I live in Galway, I'm a mammy busy at maths, with 3 children and dog called Alfie. I love to read and swim in our local lake.
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I am married to a very patient man who has to listen to how much I love maths all the time, while listening to me make very silly mistakes (like wondering where would I find an acorn tree?? He told me I should look for an oak tree!)

I have three children who keep me busy, 2 are in secondary school and 1 is in primary school. The child that demands most of my attention is our dog Alfie. He is a rescue Yorkshire terrier and needs lots of love and affection.

I love to swim in our local lake – jumping of the pier is my favourite. I also love going for long walks by the sea and eating nice food. My students give out to me for talking about food all the time! My favourite treat is Murphy’s butterscotch ice cream in Galway.
My pronouns are

She/Her
How I Use Maths In My Job:

I teach maths at third level to engineering students. Although engineering students do lots of really tough calculus in college, I find that I spend a lot of time going back over maths like fractions to help them understand the algebra they need to do.

I also spend time doing research and I am particularly interested in how children learn maths. In my research I spend time analysing data and I need to use statistics to present this data.
My Work

I teach engineering students and am very interested in how people learn maths.

Aoife OBrien