Project Maths

jimkekk wrote: »

This thread is getting very personal and I think it is better for everybody (including me) to move on. At the moment it is the students that are important and nothing should be said or written that will upset them in any way.

That's rich, considering the personal attacks you've been throwing around.

Having observed the later development of this thread from the sidelines since jimkekk joined in, I find I can no longer resist pointing out a few glaring inaccuracies in his posts:

(Sorry for my longest post ever, but there's just so much to contradict, and this is only a selection! See end for TLDR.)

Post #87

jimkekk wrote: »

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The good news is the SEC (state examinations commission) are completely ignoring the NCCA and will produce good examination papers.

I see no evidence that SEC is ignoring NCCA. It looks to me as though their sample papers and real papers have been doing pretty much what the NCCA said they would do.

Post #89:

jimkekk wrote: »

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Good news it's on its last legs .The SEC have decided to do their own thing

Again, no evidence for this.

Post #92:

jimkekk wrote: »

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(i)Too much emphesis on statistics and probability gone from worth 25% of the marks on paper 2 to 50% .Probability and statistics do not feature in many first year 3rd level courses.

As already pointed out, this claim is ludicrous. The number of students who will need to take a statistics course at some stage at 3rd level vastly exceeds the number who will need to take any other type of mathematically related course.

Anyway, the LC course is not just about preparing for 3rd level. It is also about educating people to be informed and discerning citizens. Beyond basic numeracy, statistics is one of the areas of mathematics that are most relevant in trying to achieve this goal.

jimkekk wrote: »

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(v)The people running project maths have had their sample papers rejected by the pilot schools see ministers reply to a question from Olivia Mitchell
"It is not the normal practice to issue mock examination papers. However, the
NCCA issued mock papers to the 24 Project Schools in February 2011 which were
intended to supplement sample question material already sent to schools for the
relevant strands the previous summer, and the sample papers published by the
State Examinations Commission in October 2010. The feedback indicates that the
questions in the mock papers were more difficult than expected. In response,
all of the project schools were notified that it was the sample paper published
by the SEC which reflects the standards and type of question likely to arise in
the actual examination."
I rest my case when the SEC tell the pilot schools to reject the mock papers set by the NCCA enough said

LOL! The SEC told the pilot schools no such thing.
The message that was sent to the pilot schools came from the NCCA themselves.
And what does the message reveal:
People who never had to produce exam papers before were pressured by schools into producing some mock papers, because it seemed that none of the commercial companies wanted to bother. Lo and behold, they didn't do quite as good a job as the state agency whose sole function it is to make good exam papers. The teachers told them that they were a bit too hard. They accepted the feedback and pointed out to the schools something that should have been obvious anyway: the best indicator as to the standards that the SEC will expect in June is given by the sample papers that the SEC issued.

Post #101:

jimkekk wrote: »

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The committee then formed made up of mostly of non teachers or teachers with little or no teaching experience . The minister at the time Batt O'Keeffe apointed an ex Rose of Tralee with 6 months teaching experience as a spokesperson and "expert" .

This is simply false. As I pointed out in a post on another thread to someone who was claiming that this course was produced by people with no mathematical background:

jimkekk wrote: »

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The minister at the time Batt O'Keeffe apointed an ex Rose of Tralee with 6 months teaching experience as a spokesperson and "expert" .

The person referred to is not on any syllabus committee of the NCCA, not that I would see any problem if she was.

jimkekk wrote: »

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The committee gets most of its information from UL. There was no consultation with teachers or the Irish maths teachers association .

False again. There is no-one from UL on the course committee, as far as I can see. There was a wide public consultation process beforehand, which was well advertised and open to anyone to make their opinions known. (I didn't get around to making a submission myself, but there you go.) As you can see from the list above, the Irish Maths Teachers Association are represented on the committee itself, not to mind being consulted with!

jimkekk wrote: »

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The NCCA has produced sample papers which are so out of touch with reality that the SEC wrote to the 24 pilot schools telling them to ignore the NCCA papers. So now those who are implementing the course and deciding the syllabus are at odds with the NCCA .

False, as previously explained.

Post #105

jimkekk wrote: »

I also question the wisdom of removing/reducing other important topics such ... Max and Min problems in differential calculus .

I see no evidence in the syllabus document that this has been removed. In fact, it looks to me as though applications of differentiation have been expanded. Section 5.2 explicitly mentions applying differentiation to both max/min problems and rates of change at both Higher and Ordinary level. Combining this with the skills specified in section 5.3 opens a whole world of possibilities.

jimkekk wrote: »

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But my biggest concern is the people in the NCCA who are in charge of Project maths they have produced a series of sample papers which were littered with errors ,contained topics (5)not on the course and which the Dept of Ed instructed the pilot schools to ignore as they did not represent a fair assesment of the syllabus.

(Repeating it doesn't make it true.)

jimkekk wrote: »

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Students in the pilot schools sitting the LCM exam in June are at a serious disadvantage (but they have been assured that they will be looked after).

So, you think it's a big dumbing down exercise, and yet the people who have to do it are at a disadvantage. Make your mind up.

Post #109:

jimkekk wrote: »

If you are so against rote learning why do you support Project Maths which involves learning Geometry Theorems off by heart (compulsory for first time on LCHM) and learning lots of definitions of different types of data off by heart ,learning the rules of probability using sets off by heart ,learning the rules for finiancial maths off by heart .
Check the draft syllabus.
Rote learning is alive and well in Project maths .

There is no directive in the syllabus to learn these theorems by rote. It is not unusual in second or third level maths exams anywhere in the world to expect students to be able to produce some specified proofs in an examination. Nobody in their right mind would recommend that the best way to prepare for this is learning by rote. Theorems are immeasurbly easier to reproduce by understanding them and just remembering the one or two key ideas.

There is no requirement to learn definitions of data types. There is, however, a requirement to understand and distinguish between different types of data, which is reasonable.

There is no real "learning off by heart" involved in the rules of probability. If you have mental picture of a Venn diagram, and/or use a bit of common sense and understanding, the rules simply pop out.

There is no requirement to learn "rules for financial maths" (whatever they are) off by heart. All the formulae needed are in the formula book. Basically, they just need to be able to understand and apply the idea of present value. And, at higher level, to be able to treat a sequence of regular cashflows as a geometric series, which is quite a nice application of geometric series.

jimkekk wrote: »

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The bigger issue is the NCCA project maths committee which has lost all creditability as a result of their discredited sample papers .
see below minister Quinns reply to a parlimentary question.
NCCA issued ... actual examination. [/U][/B]
The SEC no longer agrees that the NCCA should set sample papers.

Another twist on your earlier false claim. In this case, it's worth noting that NCCA never has set sample papers. Sample papers have been produced by the SEC since it was established, and before that were produced by the Department of Education.

Post #114:

jimkekk wrote: »

... the leaving cert H has always had what I would call A1,A2 blockers usually in the most popular questions on Paper 1.

Aside: the only person I've ever heard using this phrase is the self-styled "maths guru" John Brennan. Methinks TommyDoyle has stumbled upon an unomfortable truth. I note you also share JB's interest in forestry matters in South Dublin: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=72429608:

Post #133:

jimkekk wrote: »

Project will not exist in 3 years time the Minister already wants to abondon it

Can you provide a link to a quote from the Minister?

Post #145:

jimkekk wrote: »

I was a student of JB in the 80's . I now work at 3rd level but do a lot of leaving cert grinds .
Jonnie B is a legend in our class we had 6 students who did acturial studies . I can remember the results of our class 12 A1 ,6 A2 .Nobody got a B or a C . That was the real LC (1988) .
He has helped so many students .If he says PM is not a good idea ,it's not a good idea !
I won't have a bad word said about Jonnie B he was my teacher for 5 years so do not call him a dinosaur!

So, you were in JB's class in the 80s, did your Leaving Cert in 1988 and have been teaching maths for over 40 years. That's a good trick.

TLDR: although I wouldn't have phrased it quite so crudely as he did, the evidence supports LeixlipRed's assertion that JimKekk/JB is speaking through the orifice obtained from the correct one by applying the orthonormal change of basis represented by the diagonal matrix 1 0 0],[0 -1 0],[0 0 -1, (assuming a suitably chosen initial basis).

If a report in the Irish Times today is any guide, Project Maths isn't working:

Last year only 18 per cent of students took the new programme at higher level. This year 21 per cent have registered to take higher level in Project Maths but this is expected to drop on the morning of the exam.In the Dáil recently, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn revealed that 20 per cent of students who registered to sit higher level maths in the Leaving Cert dropped down to ordinary level in 2010. This reflects concern among students that they could fail higher level maths, making them ineligible for many CAO courses. Last year more than 4,300 students failed maths at higher, ordinary and foundation level.
Students are also reluctant to take higher level maths because it is regarded as tougher and more time consuming than other subjects.

I didn't go through the Irish education system, so I didn't know that students could drop down to an easier exam at the last minute?

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Doesn't matter what subject you're teaching or how interesting it is.
When you have the institutional structure set up in such a way that
the only thing that matters are points at the end of 2 years you are
encouraging students to view their subjects these ways. There's no other
way about it, a students future potentially hangs in the balance dependent
on their ability to regurgitate answers to a set curriculum on one/two days
at the end of 2 years whether they understand the material or not.

I think its highly unfair to criticize the students for playing the game
according to the rules the people who structure the curriculum allow
for. If they didn't want to encourage the obvious regurgitation that has
been prevalent in systems such as this one since their origin then they
would change the structure of the system. If not then I think they are
to blame, not the students. There are unintended but real consequences
to every action, regurgitation on test day is one of them. A way to stop
this would be to structure the system cumulatively or better yet to
structure a system by which progression to the next topic is only achieved
after mastery of the current topic - with time to go over the prerequisite
material back from the junior cert if a student does not progress. This
is basically the system I'm working on with my brother & for the first
time in 5 years of school he's learning the material & not seeing it as
memorization of disconnected facts. This goes for all subjects. Project
maths is just a band-aid on a dysfunctional system & the makers are
obviously aware of this considering how low the figures they hope to
achieve with this system are ("An uptake of 30% at Higher level is
targeted").

If technology was adequately implemented a realistic system with figures
to be proud of this could be realized. I could go on but I think it will fall
on deaf ears, I'll bide my time Just don't like the continual blame put
on students for playing the game according to the rules allowed for by
the system.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Couldn't agree more!!

In fairness S.K23, one of the goals of Project Maths is (thankfully) a move away from rote learning and studying for your exam principally on the basis of what usually comes up.



The failure of the rote learning model was never more evident than in the reaction to yesterday's regular maths exam. Many complained about 7(c)(ii), the question with the graphs. From a conceptual point of view it's an easy question. f'(x) is always negative, so it can't be C as C is increasing. If f'(x)=g'(x) then f and g differ by a constant so it can't be B. So it must be A. The fact that students found this question so difficult is evidence, in my opinion, that there is not enough conceptual understanding.

Ditto for 7(b)(ii). People complained that you had to find dy/dx in terms of x (and not t). This threw them off. Why? Finding it in terms of x merely involved rewriting the equation
[LATEX]\displaystyle x=\frac{t-1}{t + 1}[/LATEX]
in terms of t and subbing in. Is that really that hard?

My sister sat this paper and she is an example of the type of student mentioned in the Chief Examiner's report Permabear quoted. She struggled with any question that deviated a little bit from the norm. And not out of time considerations: she attempted all eight questions. In 4(b)(ii) students were asked to construct a series using a simple equation

[LATEX]\displaystyle a_k = u_k + u_{k+1}[/LATEX]

(u_k is given). My sister didn't even attempt this. And she's not a bad student by LC standard: she's one of the top of her class and aiming to get an A1 in maths and study it in college next year.

The Project Maths paper is, in my opinion, an improvement in attitude. I was impressed with the paper yesterday. I still have severe reservations about its difficulty (or lack thereof) for more advanced students.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

I know from firsthand experience that the videos on khanacademy aren't
good enough for everything but they are a brilliant start, imagine a
really comprehensive & non-restricted version of what he discusses was
being implemented in some schools in the US, I think that, properly
developed & implemented, would solve students problems comprehending
the material. 30 Kids to a class with laptops doing videos with a teacher
free to guide students can't fail, properly done. That only leaves the
institutional structure as it pertains to a students future to fix it's very
easy to see how this is possible if you work within some kind of model
as described above. Obviously studies would need to be done but I don't
to see how this model would fail if properly implemented. Any thoughts?

Hi,

I'm a long time reader of this thread, first time poster. I have just finished Transition Year and am now on my summer holidays. I have been using Khanacademy during the holidays to keep up my maths skills. I think kahnacademy is fantastic as it has given me a way to keep up with my maths over the holidays and I believe that this is the future of education. The website has many resources on in including maths exercises that can be related to some of the Leaving Cert maths curriculum (Can slightly differ because it's an american website). It also has many other subjects such as business, history, biology, physics, chemestry, astrology andmaybe a few more that I can't recite. That's my 2 cents on kahnacademy, I reccomend that you give it a try.

Now, to get back onto topic. I've just finished TY, I'm on my summer holidays and I'm going into 5th year next year. I'm a maths enthuiast, I enjoy doing maths, it's my favourite subject but, at the moment, I don't like project maths. The reason I don't like it is because it's disrupting the system. I can't seem to be able to find a clear and concise curriculm leading up to the 2013 Leaving Cert Maths exam and it's really throwing me off. I was planning on starting my maths study now so that I could have a good chance of succeeding in my exams but, due to the implementation of project maths, I have no idea about what I should be learning. I have asked a few maths teachers and even they can't tell me what I'm supposed to be learning.

I can see the motives for project maths and, yes, it'll probably work out in the long run but, at the present time, it is creating disorientation among a lot of young people and I would just like stability so that we know what to study and so we know what will be appearing in our Leaving Cert Exams because people seem to forget that this is our future that we are talking about.

Thanks for reading,

Robert.