Post graduate diploma for maths teachers UL FREE!

blueberrypie wrote: »

ya exams next wewk.
It is a really tough and timeconsuming course.
Please god we all pass these 2 exams.
For me the mb5021 will be more difficult to pass than mb5022. How about you?

I'd say don't put all your eggs in the graph sketching question for the 2nd exam, from looking at the previous papers the values given to work with are crazy going so you could spend ages doing it. Maybe just write down what to do and skip to the next question then come back to it. Maybe this is to encourage folk to look at all the topics on the paper rather than depending on 1 and gaming the system with good results from assignments.

If one of the questions is on sequences and series then that's just the last video lecture to practice!

I thought paper 2 was grand..... if you had 3 days to do it! Questions weren't as bad as some of the curveballs in the tutorials, still ran out of time so got about 50% of exam finished well and the rest was sketch a few diagrams and throw down random numbers.
Was it just me or did the realworld questions in q2 & 3 just go on forever!
Anyhow... hang in folks.. algebra next... just rearranging a bunch of x's and y's!

Now I remember what it feels like to be a student in class.

TheBody wrote: »

Can somebody upload a pic of the paper? I'm not doing the course but am interested to see the kind of questions on the paper.

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more to follow

Anyone any hints for the optimisation of the page for the publishers.

Ficheall wrote: »

Looking only at the questions Armelodie has provided - is that not just all maths you'd do in the first year of uni?

Suppose so, if you were doing a maths degree that is. Which if you had done, then you wouldnt be doing this course too.

Anyhow ...there will be more calculus later on in the course, horay.

spurious wrote: »

Obviously lifted from some American test. Unbelievable. Really.

I dunno, nobody batted an eyelid about imperial units after the exam. I think its good to work in wierd units too. Some countries still use imperial.

Also the half inch/one inch given made the question a little bit neater (as opposed to mm).
Come to think of it, a good few of the tutorial/lecture questions never gave the nice and neat 'whole number answer' which really made you question your method. So the lesson I learned is that it wouldnt matter if the units were klingon or Vulcan, mathematicians should be able to do the same maths on any planet (once the laws of physics are similar to earth anyhow).

Just on this note, we were told in a Project maths inservcie that questions may arise on an exam paper in imperial measurements but that the conversions would be provided to students

gaiscioch wrote: »

Like other posters, I can only nod in disbelief that in this "new" course they're using the imperial system rather than the rational, scientific world standard that is the metric system. That they seem to be taking the questions off some equally regressive US source does not bode well for the quality of the people setting the exam. It's time to move on, no matter how comfortable are great grandparents are with the imperial system.

World use of the metric system

PS: In line with Boards.ie's existing policy, I propose that there be a ban on the imperial system on Boards.ie unless it's accompanied by a translation... :rolleyes:

Its obvious the questions were taken from an american source. BTW the reading list for each module (who reads maths books when you have the internet ) is where some of the assignment questions are sourced, hence the imperial measurements.

I honestly dont think any of the questions were any harder than examples given in the course or tutorials.. it was just impossible to finish in 2 1/2 hours. If you were thinking you were literally wasting time.

Anyhow just gotta make sure all the assignments are 100%.

rainbowtrout wrote: »

No, I was giving my reaction to the exam paper that was posted on this forum. Some of the measurements were imperial rather than metric. Some of the comments were that the questions were very difficult, but personally I thought some of them weren't that far off HL LC maths.

The introductory stuff on the course might be of that level, but certainly it should get more difficult, otherwise it wouldn't be worthy of a third level qualification in my opinion.

I know of someone who did the part time in DIT and thought that was easier than the course content/exams than the UL one (but that's only one opinion and that person was doing a part time degree over 6 odd years so had less pressure).

In essence it's for 'out of field' maths teachers so it's taking an assumed knowledge of LC hons as a starting pt with maybe a smidgen of university maths.

I would think that if you get through the course and your in the interview chair you'd be grand fielding any questions, also you've been given the green light by the teaching council which is another tick box. There is a fair bit of pedagogy content specifically related to project maths and secondary school students which is good too. Although I don;t know would you be on a par going up against someone with a maths degree and the 'hdip'.

Essentially I don't think it is targetted the people it was meant to target at all... namely the 'out of field' teachers who have been teaching maths for yonks 'unqualified', they're happy where they are and probably have permanent positions and know they'll get the LC classes next year without question next year. This was the nub of the whole bruhaha about ten years ago with the big "only 17% of student doing honours maths... unqualified maths teachers" headlines. I reckon there's a lot more fully qualified maths grads that have gone into teaching now than there were before.

Even after doing the course I'd still consider a maths degree at some stage down the line... but for the moment this'll have to do (cos I'm broke :(and it's free:))

As an aside does anyone know what happened those unemployed engineers that were looking to take our jobs when the recession hit. It was like a request for info thread every week at one stage (getting their qualifications assessed for maths etc). I know of one that went into teaching but now that things have picked up he's gone like a flash back to 'the real world' of engineering.... and money:mad:

patriciaf6 wrote: »

Is there any reason a qualified maths teacher would complete this free course to upskill?

Career wise... NO!
Although if they've completely missed project maths stuff (return from abroad maybe!) then the workshops might be useful.
No harm in practicing though if its been a while in college.. brain is a muscle and all that.

Jippo wrote: »

I hope you are joking here and don't teach algebra like that!:)

no totally serious... I do a ten minute crash course for 1st yrs... bunch of x's and y's lads.. keep em all together... bring something over equals, change the sign, out pops yer answer...
exercises/h.wrk can be done on wolfram so throw it into that for next few weeks. gluck and thanks.
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