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Post by corastack1 on May 26, 2012 5:37:38 GMT -5
One last message for the moment to the mathematics community is that my top students really at ITT are part time students that are working in all kinds of places in industry many holding fairly senior management positions as engineer etc. I reflective diaries on past experience etc with mathematics they reflect on how much they enjoy a structured approch to the teaching of mathematics and its fundamentals and the logic inherent in the subject. They also like the fact that mathematical statement are either true or false - for the most part and that mathematical hypothesis are either true or false. This business of including all this open ended problems in mathematics curriculum would cause me some concern in view of this. Students enjoy the fact that for the most part things are either right or wrong - the truth of mathematics for the most part. They really enjoy getting the answer right- this gives them great sense of achievement and satisfaction. As Oli rightly says we need a balance between exposing students to actual mathematics and then helping them develop problem solving capablilty. As with curriculums balance is required here also. Putting too much emphasis on problel solving and not enough on the basic and fundamentals in mathematics is not in the best interest of mathematical education.
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Post by corastack1 on May 26, 2012 6:45:06 GMT -5
One more thing - how much of our money has been spent so far on this project. One estimate is 100 hundred million!! Perhaps by PM approximation standards this is not a lot of money but to me it is massive. What could we all do it we had shared this between us!! Insiders say last year than wheras in previous years the marking scheme would give a max of 3 for any attempt at an answer last year marks were changed so that 3 moved up to 7 ensuring more C's etc. This is what my sources are saying- perhaps they have not recieved the correct information. How much of this sort of thing goes on unknown to the public!!
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Post by corastack1 on May 26, 2012 7:22:47 GMT -5
sent to key person in Irish Mathematics
Looking at PM forum- ideal place for my findings on something UCC didn’t have time to do i.e benchmark PM against best practice internationally!!!
Very interesting findings! I have put in a huge amount of work into all of this!
Glad that there at least a few independent minded mathematicians out there who can see PM for that it is?? What about the cost??? What government official is going to admit any kind of mistake whatsoever in view of this massive cost! C.
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Post by corastack1 on May 26, 2012 9:03:15 GMT -5
Sent to key president in the IOT sector.
Just as an example of how bad PM is they removed all material on vectors from the OL and HL.
No country in the world that I have looked at did this to their mathematical curricula.
In fact all the top maths curricula have calculus and vectors etc and technical equation solving at the heart of their curricula and what did PM do remove 40% of calculus from HL and all rules of differentiation from OL.
Our engineering students will have very few algebra or calculus knowledge/skills when they come in to us.
It is an absolute disgrace what PM did to engineering type mathematics and we told this to EI when top group of professors met them two weeks ago.
In the process one estimate is that they spent over 100 million !!
Sincerely,
Cora.
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Post by corastack1 on May 26, 2012 12:09:30 GMT -5
highschoolmathreview.com/Ontoria mathematics curriculum very strong technically. Interesting does differentiation discussing limits continity etc and then much more than our old LC on vectors Similar to Singapore. Doesn't do integtation but differentation is taught using IT and computer software which is the best incorporation of IT I have seen at this level. Examining differavitive of tanx is done by looking at the tangent at different points using appropriate software. Definitely the best use of IT to understand differenitaiton here than in any other curriculum I have looked. Very technical but very strong on problem solving also.
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Post by corastack1 on May 26, 2012 12:20:11 GMT -5
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 2:27:36 GMT -5
On Pg 12 you will find depiction of mathematical tree in Canada and you will see exactly where PM is now positioned relative to all other top mathematical education systems. The same pattern is repeated time and time again and that is that PM is now well placed below all the top world education systems! The reason is that the topics that are the heart of these systems are calculus ( we have reduced this by 40%) vectors etc ( reduced this by 100%) and what I call technical equations solving ( could be at least -60%) but most difficult to quantify. These findings should confirm that PM and their people called it completely wrong - hammered by the media particulally the IT every year to do something to solve the problem with mathematics education at second level! We could somethings withs students who got B or A in ordinarly level provided they put the work in. I would have grave concerns about we will be able to do with them now! But this is not the issue International evidence supports absolutely and completely that PM is fundamentally flawed because its curriculum is all wrong- topics that it choose to throw out were all the ones that are the heart of not just one but all the top level mathematical education systems!
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 3:28:31 GMT -5
In the last article I mean advanced technical equations solving along the lines of material on second highest topic on ontario mathematical tree!! Advanced mathematical functions which you have to do in conjunction with calculus and vectors. Huge chunkcs of these two have been dropped by PM. Particularly all the technical hard bits! Bits that prove you are top technically mathematically!!
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 3:52:37 GMT -5
If you again look at the last piece and sroll down you will see the excellent way calculus is presented in Ontoria. It teaches from the start using simple comprehensible examples of limits continuity etc- absolutely top class approach to the teaching of calculus. Very technical but very comprehensible at the same time. We did not teach calculus this way on our old LC. We left a lot of the fundamentals out! This is the correct approach to teaching the fundamentals in calculus. We should be trying to emulate the best. Both of the two top tiers of mathematical educaitons systems are way behond not only PM but also beyond old LC hons. It is up the mathematical chain we should be going doing what these crowd are doing IT to support understanding of limits tangents derivatives etc. The way this information is presented by the dept of education is absolutely top class. It is these mathematical models of educaiton we should be copying or taking best bits from. Is it any wonder that our students can't compete now with internation competion for mathematics lecturing post and some top Irish academics felt compelled to hire Irish students so that some at least would end up in the system!!
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 4:49:01 GMT -5
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_leaving_age#EuropeBest I could find on compulary education - age up until in different countries attending school is compulsary. Ours by this is 16 but vast majority of students stay on to complete sixth year and many now at least 18. One of my friends has done doing LC at the moment and he is now 19! If we are to compete with the top our mathematical educaiton systems should provided similar level of mathemaitcal education at age 18 as all other top mathematical educaitonal systems! Otherwise we will fall behind!! Way Way behiind with PM now and the mathematical community need to come togehter to see what can be done about this. One person speaking out on their own will have no impact on policy at government level no matter how strong and valid their arguements are!
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 5:11:22 GMT -5
Please forward to Ronnie dept of education! Ronnie- Quinn's private secretary. Hi Ronnie, Hope you are able to digest my international benchmarking findings on the PM forum and that you can explain these to the minister. One solution would be for the minister to now say that transition year has to do some core curriculum stuff say in sciences and mathematics this then would allow for much stronger mathematics and science and IT education standards at the end of LC. How many other countries have transition - doss year for many students. Half the year could be spent on dossing but the other half could be spend on learning fundamental mathematics so that Ireland can begin to move towards keeping up with the best. Sincerely, Cora.
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 5:23:53 GMT -5
I have a direct line to Quinn via his private secretary Ronnie who is supposed to be a very nice fellow- never met him. Ronnie and Quinn are listening but not doing! How they say that PM is flawed in any way given that so much of our money which none of us have any more has been invested in it.
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 5:51:19 GMT -5
Value of transition year to mathematics and sciene!! Some people do the Young Scientist this is great but many do not use this time to deepen understanding of mathematics and science and IT etc.
It really does depend on the school. I'm doing it at the moment, counting down the days till its over. I think TY is only of benefit if you have huge self discipline and are willing to use the extra time well. Make it clear to your brother they will not start the leaving cert course so you will not get a head start. Make sure he goes to meet a current TY student/5th year and ask them what they thought of the schools Ty, DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT THE SCHOOL SAYS YOU WILL DO, THEY ARE LYING! My school made out like we would be doing all this fun stuff, and guess what, we do nothing! No photography,psychology,criminology,journalism! All we got was a class in film-making which is a disaster and a class in makeup!
Pros 1 It gives you a chance to try new subjects 2 It gives you a chance to try out careers (though you could quite easily do work experience during the summer holidays. 3 If you are willing to study yourself, you can revise all your JC stuff 4 Its great if you are a waster and hate doing any work ever. If you are in anyway hardworking or academic you will hate it.
Cons. 1 You are stuck in school a whole extra year 2 Its very expensive (trips,whatever else) 3 The classes are pointless but you still have to go to them. You don't learn anything, whether its to do with the leaving or not. 4 You have to do all these stupid projects. 5 It makes you forget how to study and concentrate 6 Did I mention its an enormous waste of time? 7 The teachers really can't teach you anything, because they can't do the LC course. You spend most of your time staring at a wall 8. If you took honors at JC, you will forget everything because in the interest of 'inclusion' they put everyone in together and you end up doing the ordinary level. Goodbye my A in maths, it was nice knowing you.
In conclusion, run as far away from it as you can. *bangs head on table "why did I take TY?Why?!"*
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Post by corastack1 on May 27, 2012 7:31:07 GMT -5
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Post by johnnyb on May 27, 2012 12:42:51 GMT -5
Not sure if the 3rd level maths departments realise that the leaving cert maths H students starting Engineering/commerce/science/business/computer science will not have the studied Matrices/linear transformations/vectors.Differentiation of parametric and implicit functions,differentiation of trig functions from 1st principles,Integration using substitution/Integration by parts,Difference equations,most of the old course on sequences and series. Maclauren series,tests for convergence of series,Limits of trig functions/Limits of algebraic functions,Binomial theorem. Ordinary level students will not be able to solve cubic equations ,will not know the product/quotient or chain rules in differential calculus.Will not have studied geometric series,combinations. So what will they have covered well lots of statistics where they use their calculator to find the standard deviation and lots of euclidean geometry which they will never use again . What committee of the NCCA decided that Euclidean geometry was more important than differential calculus. For Higher level students The Geometry syllabus states that they must be able to do 20 constructions,know about 6 definitions (rote learning) be able to recite three theorems(more rote learning) and know what 10 other theorems say,and all for 25 marks! But worse is to come students will be examined on financial maths where the syllabus is so vague that they could be asked any ting from Compound Interest to the fair price for a bond or to derive a formula for a mortgage repayment. It is time to shout stop! There is also huge changes at Junior cert where the sine rule has been removed from the trigonometry. UCC has produced an excellent interim report expressing grave concerns as have others in 3rd level. It is interesting to look at the make up of the Project maths implementation Support group. The group consisted of five reps from DES, but only one teacher and that teacher had no teaching experience (was studying for the Hdip).The rest of the group came from various interested 3rd level and business groups which had nothing to do with maths teaching.
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