BANDUNG, fmipa.itb.ac.id, –Profesor Kim Beswick, Profesor of Mathematics Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia, last Saturday , November 4, 2023 at 14.00-15.30 WIB gave a guest lecture in “Mathematics Distinguished Lecture Series (MDLS)” series at Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA), Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). The title of the lecture was “Principals’ Leadership Capability for Mathematics in STEM”.

Leadership Content Knowledge (LCK) consists of school leaders’ knowledge about subject matter and beliefs about how the subject matter is learned. This influences their capacity to exercise instructional leadership by guiding teachers and providing feedback on their teaching performance. A principal with a strong mathematics LCK can support teachers to emphasize things such as mathematical reasoning and problem solving as well as provide advice on how understanding of important mathematical ideas can be developed. Principals’ LCK also influences their decisions regarding hiring and resource allocation. In this presentation, Prof. Kim Beswick discussed the nature of principals’ LCK for mathematics, and its relationship to their LCK for other Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) lsubjects.

Prof. Edy Tri Baskoro, Chair of the 2023 MDLS Committee, said that Professor Kim Beswick is one of the mathematicians who has made a major contribution to the field of mathematics education. She has written about 60 publications in Scopus indexed scientific journals with an H-index of 15. “Professor Kim Beswick is the director of the Gonski Institute and head of the School of Education at UNSW. Research of Prof. Beswick examined the beliefs and knowledge that underlie mathematics teaching, particularly in relation to teachers’ hopes and aspirations for their students. As a mathematics teacher for more than 13 years, she is committed to improving the quality of mathematics education for all students,” he added.

This MDLS activity has been organized by Mathematics Study Program, FMIPA ITB, since 2021 by presenting speakers who are world figures in various fields in mathematics and mathematics education. Throughout 2021, four editions had been held with the following speakers: Prof. Motoko Kotani (Japan), Prof. Christophe Ritzenthaler (France), Prof. Hans Munthe-Kaas (Norway), and Prof. Richard A. Brualdi (United States). Throughout 2022, six editions had been held with the following speakers: Prof. Martin Hairer (England), Prof. Edy Soewono (Indonesia), Prof. Marta Sanz-Sole (Spain), Prof. Gil Kalai (Israel), Prof. Gang Tian (China), and Prof. Efim Zelmanov (United States). This year, Prof. Kim Beswick is the third speaker at the 2023 MDLS with the two previous speakers, Prof. Avi Wigderson (United States) and Prof. Kuntjoro Adji Sidarto (Indonesia). This third edition was attended by around 60 participants (lecturers, researchers, and undergraduate and graduate students) from various universities in Indonesia. Professor Kim Beswick’s MDLS recording can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aa0BdnhY00.  Further information regarding the MDLS edition can be seen at https://math.itb.ac.id/mdls/.

Author: ETB