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Post by corastack1 on Jun 3, 2012 21:52:16 GMT -5
Latest from the frontline in the schools - euclidean geometry getting no attention- by top teacher and book author. On a point of information: PM has basic integration by inspection and the use of mathematical tables to integrate some exotic functions exp etc The Trapezoidal rule and Integration will probably appear together as an exam question in the near future. Basic applications of integration will remain. There is no integration for PM ordinary leaving certificate maths, however there was no integration on the traditional course either. The situation with Euclidean Geometry is dire. The PM course cannot be covered in the normal timeframe in secondary schools. Maths teachers and their principals have engaged in consistent and systematic provision of extra class time(during and outside school time) to attempt to cover the PM syllabus and they have still not managed to cover the material. The result is that Euclidean Geometry has been given "Cinderella status" and has been by and large ignored. For confirmation of this you will only have to look at the standard of the geometry question in the June examination. It will consist of a Higher Junior Cert level theorem and/or construction. Pathetic.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 6, 2012 14:37:05 GMT -5
Difficulites canadian student had with calculus as a result of not having exposure to it in secondary school.
calculus is a hard class period, regardless of whether or not you aced your previous math classes. Calculus involves a new thought process and actually requires you to understand what is going on and why its happening like that. As long as you do the homework, and ask questions you should be fine. And calculus is not necessary for university, its certainly preferred, but i did pre-calc and AP stats in highschool for junior and senior year respectivelly and i still got into university for civil engineering. although i wish i would have done it in highschool because its super frickin hard in college
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Post by johnnyb on Jun 7, 2012 8:21:40 GMT -5
Everyone's thoughts welcome... According to the media there are now 24% extra students taking Leaving Cert H maths this year. The only reason the extra numbers are sitting the Higher paper is the the 25 extra points ! It is now possible for a student who received 38% in the LC Higher maths will get 70 points.The message is even better for those in Gael schools they only need 36.2% in higher maths to get 70 points in the LC. The increase in numbers doing H maths this year has nothing to do with project maths it is all to do with extra points. Project maths will be found out on Monday morning . But unless the parents of the current 5Th years rise up and object, their students will be studying a maths course which will be of no benefit when thy leave school and go to 3rd level. In fact they will probably not be able to apply for places in UK universities!
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Post by johnnyb on Jun 7, 2012 8:23:23 GMT -5
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Post by johnnyb on Jun 9, 2012 13:15:50 GMT -5
Large numbers of Pilot school project maths students very unhappy with paper 1 .see their comments on projectmaths.com It is time for parents to protect the maths future of their children ! The NCCA or the minister is not listening to teachers or students or 3rd level professionals.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 16, 2012 8:34:13 GMT -5
Interesting observations from teachers response to Quinns proposals for very radical reform of JC What emerges here is that teachers were able to veto their reps and had some say in them being reappointed to NCCA. There was process for selecting NCCA nominees etc by unions. From Lynch's NCCA maths chief email to me no such checks and balances were in place for HEA maths reprs. I may have misintepreted this but this was certainly my impression. He said NCCA simply accepted these HEA nominees. What maths body appointed these maths nominees to ensure proper accoutability to mathematics community? Does anyone understand this point or have an answer?? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was right. It was the 'daft' ideas of NCCA! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I suppose Flynn addressed some aspects etc. I think on IB ( maths international bac) teachers mark the project and then an external person comes in to see if the marking is consistent. Maths project is only 20% and there are concerns about playgarism here. Key isses not adressed here are playgarsim as a result of too much marks given for project work. This key point not addressed here. Exams could be spread out a bit more but then could end being very costly etc. Have to have exam based assessment as key part at this level in education. I think www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0423/1224315049314.html Another major issue but teachers hitting back.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 16, 2012 9:00:08 GMT -5
I am not an expert on this but think project work has a role and value etc but would suggest max 15- 20% be considered in some subjects. Too much project work could end up exhausting students. This has been my experience dealing with this in the IOT sector but certainly project work of some kind can enhance educational experience for many.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 17, 2012 1:00:43 GMT -5
Reading this report by Flynn, I would have to take issues with TUI suportirng such radical reforms to JC. I have close relations with TUI at ITT and indeed was centrally involved in the drafting of motion no 1 this year at this years congress in Wexford on issues to do wth terms and conditions of sevice in the IOT sector. Gravely concersn about impact on qaulity of all frontr particulrly on teaching at level 8 from Croke Park deal with I voted against on these grounds requiring lecturers in the sector to teach 18 hours. This is particularly harsh on the likes of maths lecturers and others who so have lots of lab hours etc. It far too intensive and matters in this motion which was overwhelmighly supported and voted through should be addressed as a matter of urgency by TUI head office and exectutive. The experience in this sector is that some CA is certainly very useful etc but 40% at JC is far too radical particularly when the work being assessed is project based where plagarism is a huge factor. Even myself tallkking to some very ambitious parents of kids of my own kids age tell me how much work they have done to help their children do projects. This is all great but giving 40% for plagarism and projects done by parents or others would not be in the interest of fairness to all etc. However I do know that students get a great kick out of doing some projects and learn many things outside the classroom from doing them etc so there is astrong argument for including proejct based element to assessment. It is done already in art but the project is not marked by the actual teacher. However if projects etc were marked by teachers and someone other examiner looked at the marks to see if they were consistent with other marks given by other teachers then this could be considered. However asking students to invest too much of their time in project based learning will now work at this level and indeed could put them under more stress that they are currently. Great care is needed in to the introduction of continuous assessment at second level but there are stong arguments for doing so. I have written to the minister about this- not that he will take one bit of notice I think he knows my name at this stage and has sent me a letter acknoloding my great passion and concern for PM matters etc but of course this wasn't enough of me and indeed my conclusions was that at this stage even with very bright private secratry advising him - he simply does not have sufficient awareness of the complexity of ths issues. I suggested that in view of grave concerns I had about NCCA radical ideas for reform of the second level mathematic curriculum that he needed to exercise extreme care here and that in my view what was required as a matter of urgency was to introudce three new subjects in some way into JC 1 (basic) applied mathematics 2 computer programming and 3 enterprenship and innovation I said max 15-20% inititally anyway for CA on JC. This reduced amount might get support of ASTI whose very stong points partiularly by current president I completely agree with. However PM is now in position - for one reason or another we in the mathematic community did not have level of communication with key NCCA reps that union execctive have in my opinion. However I only seriously looked at all of this five or six months ago. However there are issues to be addressed by the mathematiccs commuunity here on some of points raised. Apart from IMS we do not appear to have robust stuctures for ensuring accountbabily - I am not in any way inferriing wrong doiing of any kind but just drawing the attention to ASTI exectutive decision not to renominate certain key person because of percieved overly radical views of reform which the majority of ASTI simply could not support.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 17, 2012 1:08:14 GMT -5
I meant of course that maths lecturers and indeed myself have virtually no lab hours etc.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 17, 2012 8:29:46 GMT -5
One final contribution here for the moment and it perhaps not relevant to the discussion but one other very contentious issue I tried to address with Quinn was and I put it very strongly - educational apartheid secondary education system in Dublin and particalarly in South Dublin. This is not a feature of secondary education systems in any other city in the country. Indeed some of the best schools in the country are in Galway and in Limerick city and also in the county of Cork. I sat beside a very rich business man at civil parnership recently and he told me he went to a pubic school in Dublin. I met anotoher very senior partner in KPMG and so and the finance director of one of Ireland's most successful airlines and several top people like this who wouldn't dream of sending their children to any of the schools that in some way could have contrbuter to their huge success in life. Also attending dinner parties etc in places in South Dublin conversationg invariabley turns to which private Dublin school did you go to. Of course being from the country I tell people I went to a local school but have preferred to have gone to comprhehsive with better physics etc etc. I know Dublin parents at the moment are making huge financial sacrifices to send their children to private schools which are no better say than the best in places like Tralee or Galway and having to pay through the roof in the processs Vat majorityof parents now cannot afford to pay these exhorbitant fees for thier chiilden for education that is provided for free in almost all other counties. My suggestion to the minister is that he should make the vast majority of Dublin schools public as in all other counties and end this what I call educational aparthied in Dublin. I siad it was not acceptable that a labour mininister would not address this issue but of course the irony is that he came from so called top Dublin private school himself which I won't mention. There are places in South Dublin where all secondary schools are private in other words people are having to pay through the roof to attend their local school. This is an entirely unacceptable situation and should be addressed by the minister in my opinion who is contributing huge amounts to tax payers moneys to these schools.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 17, 2012 8:48:18 GMT -5
If the minister put it like this to all these 'elitist' type private schools which taxpayer is contributing huge amounts of money to, we will withdraw all public finding if you do not go public how many of them would be able to survive and prosper as schools. Is it any wonder any of these parents have nothing left to pay for third level.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 17, 2012 11:49:52 GMT -5
One other interesting and perhaps more pertinent point about this 'which private school did you go to'' or 'which private school are your children going to'' nonsense is that I was sharing a table with a number of very distinguished mathematicains at last years IMS in UL and of course I was sitting across the table form perhaps the most distisguished one and the one that everyone knows that me and people that I am corrresponding with have very strong disagreement with regard to key PM curriculum design decision etc but I was also sittting beside a most polite fellow from Stilllorgan who had just ended his first year doing mathematics at Cambridge and won some IMS award for achievement and excellent in mathematics. I asked him as a matter of interest which school he went to and he said he attended a well known public school in Cabinteely in South Dublin. Didn't use the word public to describe it. He described the maths teachers there as absolutely excellent. I have come across plenty people in south Dublin who would not send their sons to this school firstly because it is public and secondly that its main sport is Gaelic football. I suppose coming from a small town in Kerry if you for exampl went into John B Keane's put everyone rich or poor famous or otherwise were given the same respect. So different in some way in Dublin in some sense.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 18, 2012 0:15:34 GMT -5
I suppose people know I am female rep on GB at ITT and maybe also have a passion for politics. This is not a forum to discuss percieved inequities in education systems but there is huge debate within IOT's at the moment about acquiring TU status. Every insitutitone I think is entititleld to educational evolution etc but no other sector other than the IOT sector did more to deal with or indeed address educational apartheid at third level. People who came from lower classes were denied access in large measure to edcation behond 18. Many of them never had it up to then. As a result of huge committments of staff and particularly lecturers in those instutitons Ireland accordingto key OECD reports has distinguished itslef internationally by having one of the highest participation rates at third level in the world. It was unquestionalblythe IOT sector rather than the university sector which contributed to this pheneomneal educational success etc. In view of this I have emphatically stated at private GB meeting that great care needs to be taken in design of TU's so that the students that they most provided opportunites for - ones from 'lower' classes who were excluded from education by university sector are not again excluded in the same way as before. Of course the government has pulled out all targeted research funding out of the IOT system known as strand 1 2 and 3 grant funding. There was no way they compete in any way at the research level once this was pulled.
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 18, 2012 0:25:28 GMT -5
And what did only lecturers get for all this huge committement out of Croke Park two hours extra teaching on top of already exhausting 16 - two hours could mean an extra six if it was at level 8 hons etc. IFOT did a far better job that TUI but of course IFOT didn't have an outfit called IOTI promoting or insisting on this solution. No way would the university presidents insist on their staff doing an extra six hours teaching related work per week! I have gone way off the point. C
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Post by corastack1 on Jun 18, 2012 15:23:38 GMT -5
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