Dr Simon Fairfax MMath, PhD, MIMA, SFHEA
Senior Lecturer Mathematical Sciences
- Work email Simon.Fairfax@liverpool.ac.uk
About
Personal Statement
I am currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool on the Teaching and Scholarship pathway. I completed my PhD at Swansea University in 2013 in the area of noncommutative geometry. I'm interested in a broad range of mathematical topics. My teaching focuses on developing mathematical IT skills in S1 and financial mathematics in S2. I offer MSc projects mainly in pure mathematics.
I am currently the Academic Lead for Student Community leading on Peer Assisted Learning, Welcome Week events, and the Learning Assistant scheme; strategic programmes involving the student community. Previously, I was the Chair of the Board of Examiners in the Department of Mathematical Sciences (2019 - 2024).
My scholarship focuses on:
(a) Authentic Assessment. I am interested in embedding employability into the curriculum, for example, by introducing work-related activities for personal and academic skills development.
- I have developed employer themed projects in two large modules.
- I introduced digital story telling into the assessment strategies of my teaching which promote reflective practice & improves career-readiness.
- I support other Module Coordinators with their own versions of employability themed tasks.
- I have submitted articles to MSOR Connections (2023 and 2024) which details my approach and the results of my latest evaluation.
(b) The internationalisation of the mathematics curriculum.
- I established an International Linked Project which connected local students with students from our oversea partnership university XJTLU. This allowed home and international students to connect online and working collaborative before they met in Year 2 of their studies in Liverpool (2018 - 2023).
- I introduced the 3+3 group formation model facilitating collaboration between home and international students to bring together a diverse mathematics community via collaborative group projects in Year 2 (2022 - present).
(c) Active learning in flipped classrooms.
- I developed a flipped learning financial mathematics module which includes a range of interactivity classroom activities that supports the learning environment and promotes lifelong learning (2023 - present).
- I use a range of features in Poll Everywhere (polling software), such as clickable images, MCQ, open response discussion topics, to allow for student engagement with structured feedback during class time.
- I have previously developed gapped notes for my teaching to allow time for student participation during lectures (2018 - 2022).
- I use a PC Tablet to improve the quality and effectiveness of the learning resources.
- I use polling software to encourage engagement during lectures.