On Thursday 7th April, CESI executive member Elizabeth Oldham, was honoured by the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) when she was presented with the 2022 ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding contribution to Irish education. Elizabeth has been a member of the ESAI for more than 40 years and was President of ESAI from 2000 to 2002.
During that time Elizabeth has also been a member of CESI, actively promoting the Society in its dual role as a subject association for computing courses and an advocacy and support group for all aspects of the use of IT in education.
Elizabeth Oldham’s main work has been in the field of mathematics education. She has a long association with cross-national studies of curriculum and attainment: she was a member of the international Curriculum Analysis Group for the Second International Mathematics Study in the 1980s; she worked with the Educational Research Centre in Dublin with regard to curriculum aspects of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study in the 1990s; and was a member of the National Advisory Committee for the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and is a member of the National TIMSS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study] Post-Primary Advisory Group. She served as an Education Officer (Mathematics) for the Irish National Council for Curriculum and Assessment while the school mathematics courses were being revised in the 1990s.
Elizabeth’s current work is chiefly on aspects of teaching and learning mathematics, particularly with regard to teachers’ and prospective teachers’ philosophies of mathematics and mathematical identities, but also on prospective teachers’ understanding of concepts.