Student Section:Early Career Mathematicians' Conference Report

摘要

The 13th IMA Early Career Mathematicians' (ECM) Con-ference was held on Saturday, 20 November 2010, at De Morgan House, in London. The conference was organised by our out-going Conference Leader, Georgina Bygott CMath MIMA, with the invaluable support of Lizzi Lake and the IMA conference office. The conference was well attended by over 40 delegates, including quite a number of representatives from the Mathematics Societies at the Universities of Derby and Leicester. The conference was opened by Sarah Eyles (licentiate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) who was our trainer for the morning workshop titled Facilitation - a skill for life!. The aim of the workshop was to help the participants develop against IMA competencies required for Chartered Mathematician status. As the title states, the workshop also aimed to equip our delegates with a very useful life-skill. Sarah started off by giving out four different types of chocolates in order to divide us into groups. In her usual engaging and energetic style, she then took us through &mixture of short-burst teaching sessions, group exercises and interactive sessions. By taking part, we learnt and practiced many skills, including how to increase participation, resolve conflicts, ask effective questions and actively listen to others. We also learnt how to plan, open, run and close a successful facilitation session, and how important our body language is in the entire process. All of the participants received an information pack with more details on everything we learnt and more, as well as an IMA certificate of attendance that will count towards our Chartership applications.