The University of Agder (UiA) is one of Norway’s newest universities, but its roots span 190 years of history. It is located at the southern part of Norway on two campuses in Kristiansand and Grimstad which are separated by about 45 km. Academic programmes are organized into 5 faculties (Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Education, Faculty of Fine Arts, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Engineering and Science), School of Business and Law, and a Teacher Education Unit. In the Fall semester 2018, the University had 13,195 students (58% female and 42% male, 9,688 bachelor, 3,138 master, and 234 PhD), 863 academic staff and 511 administrative staff.
UiA is one of the most modern universities in Norway, and it is still growing and consolidating its position for its high-quality research and study programmes both on the national and international level. UiA seeks to be an open and inclusive university that is characterized by a culture of cooperation and aims to be on the cutting edge of innovation, education and research. It prepares students for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and co-creation of knowledge.
The University of Agder is host to MatRIC, one of the nine Centres of Excellence in Education in Norway, which focuses on mathematics teaching and learning at university level. The Faculty of Engineering and Science at UiA has received national recognition with the award of Centre for Research-driven Innovation for its activities in off-shore technology research and development in collaboration with industry and other higher education engineering faculties. The University Board of UiA recently decided that the following five research centres will be granted the status as centres for research excellence: Centre for Coastal Research (CCR), Centre for eHealth, The Mathematics Education Research Group Agder (MERGA), Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR), and Research Centre for Excellence on Life and Nutrition (FEED).
Mathematics Education at the University of Agder (UiA)
Mathematics and Mathematics Education are taught within the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Engineering and Science. Mathematics is also taught as a service subject within the engineering departments in the faculty. Mathematics education at UiA has developed over two decades. In the early 1990s the first Norwegian masters’ programme in mathematics education was established at Agder University College. Ten years later a PhD programme was established and the mathematics education group has since developed to be one of the largest and most active in Northern Europe. The programme includes PhD fellows from several other university colleges in Norway. Doctoral courses at UiA regularly attract participants from other Nordic countries and beyond. The mathematics education research group at UiA have led, or currently lead several projects that include significant national and international collaboration. The group is also a central partner in a joint Nordic masters’ programme in mathematics education together with colleagues from: Danish School of Education, Aarhus University; The University of Copenhagen; Åbo Akademi University, Vasa; and The University of Tampere.
At the end of 2013 MatRIC, Centre for Research, Innovation and Coordination of Mathematics Teaching was awarded national status as centre of excellence in education. MatRIC focuses on mathematics teaching and learning within the study programmes of other subjects such as engineering, natural sciences, economics and teacher education. MatRIC sets out to create, lead and support networks that enable sharing and development of effective use of video, digital, web-based and emergent technologies in teaching, learning and assessing mathematics; initiate, support and disseminate research into teaching, learning and assessing mathematics to identify, understand and evaluate effective innovation in practice; and bring together mathematics educators, scientists, engineers, computer scientists and economists in cross-disciplinary teams to produce workplace simulations and realistic tasks for mathematical modeling. MatRIC has been supporting PLATINUM from the very first moment the ideas for the project have been conceived.
Team members
