Introduction

Department of Mathematics Education is one of the oldest departments in Central Department of Education which was established after the restructuring the college of education in 1972 under Tribhuvan University with the implementation of the Act NESP in 1971. At the beginning, Mathematics Instruction Committee under the Institute of Education conducted different academic programs with training for in-service and pre-service mathematics teachers of different levels of schools. The two-year master’s program of mathematics education in this department was started in 1976. Nowadays, it has implemented a semester system in both face-to-face in the day shift and online mode in the evening shift. The online mode education in this department was started in 2021 for the students who cannot present regularly in face-to-face mode classrooms with the same courses in face-to-face mode.

The main vision of the Department of Mathematics Education is to become the centre of excellence for teaching-learning and research works with the mission to produce trained and competent mathematics teachers and educators for schools and colleges. The department has its own unique identity that focuses on the transformation of pedagogical and content knowledge for teaching-learning and research activities, serves quality mathematics education, and supports academic collaboration at national and international levels to faculties and students. The classrooms in the department are highly multicultural and the students are from various geographical regions of Nepal representing diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds. However, the enrollment of female students is very low in comparison to other departments of education.

The students either who completed a bachelor's degree in mathematics education or who completed a bachelor's degree from other faculties by taking at least 600 full marks of mathematics courses and having one-year bachelor degree in mathematics education, are eligible for participation in the entrance exam of master degree in mathematics education. The department has a central role in providing quality education and focusing on research-based teaching-learning activities for their students by highly experienced, qualified, dedicated and cooperative faculties. The following are the past and present faculties of this department.

Present Faculties

Staff

1. Unish Mainal

2. Rita Rijal

Courses Offered

Courses of M.Ed. Programme in ICT Education

Mathematics Education: Courses and Description

Course Title: Foundation of Mathematics Education       

This course is designed to provide a broader and deeper understanding of the state of the art of mathematics education. Mathematics education draws upon three main foundations: mathematical foundation, psychological foundation, cultural foundation and recently technological foundation. This course has been updated and modified to meet the changing needs of mathematics education.

Course Title: Abstract Algebra                                           

This is a specialization course designed for the students majoring Mathematics Education at M.Ed in ODL. This course deals with abstract algebra covering axiomatic structures such as group theory, ring theory and field theory including Galois Theory of fields. It also focuses on Sylow′s Theorem and classification of finite groups as well as nilpotent and solvable groups and series of groups. This course can also be implemented in open and distance mode (ODL mode) with different instruction strategies and different assessment techniques.

Course Title: Mathematical Statistics                                            

This course explains how statistics most accurately communicate/describe the nature of attitude, achievements and events and also explains how it condenses opinions, performances and  comparisons through summary numbers that can be understood at a glance through chart and graph. Through test of significance using the theory of probability, it also explains how statistics draws inferences, make decisions and form opinions about the evens in our day-to-day life. It covers the major contents like sampling techniques, hypothesis testing (parametric and non-parametric) and correlation and regression (Partial as well as multiple).

Course Title: History of Mathematics                    

Mathematics begins with the history anecdote in different papyrus, in different archives and in different temples/artifacts found in different civilizations such as Hindu, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Mayan, Roman, and Chinese. In different periods (from antiquity through medieval to modern) mathematicians created different branches of mathematics while they tried to answer/solve antiquity problem/puzzles/paradoxes. This course gives a comprehensive overview of ubiquitous nature of applied and applicable mathematics.

Course Title: Trends in Mathematics Education                           

This course deals with skill and knowledge in various aspects of mathematics education at different levels of the school and the University.  Besides this, it also provides an overview on the themes, issues and the recommendations made by different international education conferences. This course deals with the present status and trends of research in mathematics education too. 

Course Title: Linear Algebra                                              

This course covers Vector spaces, Inner product Spaces, linear mapping & their algebraic properties, bilinear form & Standard operators, Spectral Theorem & primary decomposition theorem with Jordan Canonical Form and Module Theory.

Course Title: Projective Geometry

Projective Geometry examines those properties of geometric figures that remain unchanged by a central projection. Perspective in art, images of conic section under projection analyzed through point at infinity and duality are the beauty of projective geometry.

Course Title: Complex and Numerical Analysis     

The topics on complex analysis deal with the basic properties of complex numbers, functions of complex variables, complex differentiations, Integration, series and residues. Furthermore, the numerical analysis deals with the numerical techniques to the solution of system of linear equations through matrix computations and solution of non-liner equations through interpolation and iterative method of differentiation and integration

Course Title: Teaching Undergraduate Mathematics

This course is designed for Master’s in mathematics education. It is expected that this course shall sharpen students in content knowledge for teaching in secondary and undergraduate level and provide knowledge in pedagogies. Basically, abstract algebra, analysis and geometry are considered as the foundation for learning other advance mathematics. This course is focused especially on these foundation course of mathematics to provide meaningful content learning and pedagogical skills and competencies necessary to run the courses in higher secondary and undergraduate level. Competent mathematics teachers are those who are able to reduce the learning contents into organized and reduced form of abstraction to make the student able to understand the abstraction. Therefore, this course intends to impart the students the mathematics that is particularly necessary to the teachers who are teaching at undergraduate level as well as at secondary level.  This course is an enrichment course to the teachers to make them fit into dealing contents of schools mathematics and undergraduate mathematics meaningfully. The contents for this enrichment course will be the simplified and made meaningful for the purpose of teaching. Besides the content enrichment it provides undergraduate mathematics teaching instructional models to the students – an appropriate pedagogy for actionable learning. This course makes students able to design lessons for undergraduate courses using different instructional strategies.

Course Title: Differential Geometry                  

An analytical geometry is a great breakthrough in the advancement of synthetic geometry occurred through the work of Descartes and Fermat and later to differential geometry where application of calculus and vector are heavily used to study shapes and surfaces. The study of curvature for space curves and fundamental forms for surface are the complex and broad in scope in representing local and global geometry.

Course Title: Measure Theory and Topology

This course is designed to provide students with the sound knowledge of measure theory and topology. The topics on measure theory deal with the theory of measure and integration in the simple setting of Euclidean and abstract space. As a preliminary step, students study the Lebesgue measure and outer measure, measurable functions, Lebesgue integral, classes and integration in Euclidean and abstract spaces. The topics in topology deal with the definition of metric spaces as topologies, generalized topological spaces and their properties. 

Course Title: Studies in Mathematics Education                           

This course aims at giving exposure to students about some of the books written in mathematics education that are used all over the world extensively. It also aims to let students pick up global   issue which is locally important, write an essay and give seminar related to components of mathematics education, like nature of mathematics, pedagogies for mathematics, teacher development, assessment strategies and research agenda.

Course Title: Operation Research                                                  

The course is designed for the M. Ed. students in Education majoring in Mathematics Education. It provides various methods and techniques of operations research for prospective math-educators and researchers. The content intends to equip the prospective teachers of mathematics to become a good time researcher and educators. 

Course Title: ICT in Mathematics Education

This course in intended for perspective mathematics teachers as well as mathematics educators who place a high value on successful students learning through the use of computer as an instructional tool. It comprises a wide range of skills varies from basic literacy to advance skills of handling instructional technology software while teaching various courses of mathematics of tertiary and graduate levels.

For any queries:

Lok Nath Bhattarai, PhD

Lecturer and Head