The General Discussion Thread

In light of some of the posts in the feedback thread, and the suggestions that it may be difficult for new posters to join in due to lack of discussion, I give you a place where we can discuss anything vaguely topical that affects young people today.

This is a place for debate, opinions, and ideas, as opposed to the Den which is a place for general friendly conversation. We can discuss anything - from current affairs to trends or stories you hear.

So I'll start off with a question; what does everybody think of the decision to offer bonus points for maths in some colleges?
(UCD are reportedly interested, while UL have committed to doing so next year, amongst the ones I know of).

I personally feel it's a horrible idea. It's unfair on students with abilities in other areas.

Colm!

This isn't the problem IMO, what I find worrying is the whole Project Maths initiative. Dumbing down maths isn't going to get us anywhere.
And what you said is true, but I'm also kind of glad that there's double maths points. I mean, Maths is one of my stronger subjects. Yes, it may give people like me an unfair advantage, but to be honest it's one I'd more than willingly take.

ohthebaby

Are the bonus points for maths just rewarded if the course you're applying to is maths / science based? If so then fair enough but if it's for any course then I don't think it's particularly fair.

ohthebaby

ohthebaby wrote: »

Are the bonus points for maths just rewarded if the course you're applying to is maths / science based? If so then fair enough but if it's for any course then I don't think it's particularly fair.

No, they're not. I do agree with them for courses like that, (although it has to be maths and science, otherwise it's pointless, since there's already a maths requirement for maths) but not in general.

The problem apart from the one you mentioned is that it actually does nothing to encourage students to take it at third level, so I'm not sure what the ultimate goal is.

sock puppet

I sort of support it. Of course it isn't fair. But then splitting students up into honours and pass groups and assigning the school's poorer teachers to the weaker students is also totally unfair yet it seems very common in schools. If the policy turns out to be effective you could argue that the ends justify the means.

edit: and yeah higher numbers sitting the honours exam wouldn't neccessarily translate into higher numbers applying for maths-type degrees.

jumpguy

Since I'm doing honours maths and points-desperate, my view is obviously a *little* biased. :P I'd be in favour of it for the current maths course anyway, maths take up a disproportionate amount of time compared to my other subjects. I'd usually be around an hour on a good night at maths, and every other subject's homework would take maybe 20 minutes on average (just homework, no study). I don't see how one could cope with HL maths without actually liking maths!

However, with the new project maths, I dunno. I'm not sure if there's any way you can increase the people taking HL maths without dumbing down the course tbh. It might sound cynical and a bit cruel, but no matter what, maths is maths and you'll have the very mathematically capable who can do HL, the average ones who can do OL and the bottom who do FL. It's just the way it is. Unless Project Maths makes maths easier, it's not gonna make more people take HL.

jumpguy

jumpguy wrote: »

Since I'm doing honours maths and points-desperate, my view is obviously a *little* biased. :P I'd be in favour of it for the current maths course anyway, maths take up a disproportionate amount of time compared to my other subjects. I'd usually be around an hour on a good night at maths, and every other subject's homework would take maybe 20 minutes on average (just homework, no study). I don't see how one could cope with HL maths without actually liking maths!

However, with the new project maths, I dunno. I'm not sure if there's any way you can increase the people taking HL maths without dumbing down the course tbh. It might sound cynical and a bit cruel, but no matter what, maths and maths and you'll have the very mathematically capable who can do HL, the average ones who can do OL and the bottom who do FL. It's just the way it is. Unless Project Maths makes maths easier, it's not gonna make more people take HL.

Well that's just it. It seems to be a bribe to get students to spend a ridiculous amount of time rote-learning the one subject you shouldn't be able to rote-learn.

I don't see why increased Higher Level maths numbers is a good thing unless the students head to third level to do a maths-related course, or at least a science one.
Therefore dumbing-down is not an option; we want to properly prepare students for maths at third level.

sock puppet

jumpguy wrote: »

However, with the new project maths, I dunno. I'm not sure if there's any way you can increase the people taking HL maths without dumbing down the course tbh. It might sound cynical and a bit cruel, but no matter what, maths and maths and you'll have the very mathematically capable who can do HL, the average ones who can do OL and the bottom who do FL. It's just the way it is. Unless Project Maths makes maths easier, it's not gonna make more people take HL.

I duno. I find it hard to believe that only 15% of students are capable of sitting the honours paper. It doesn't require you to be very mathematically capable either. In the UK the numbers taking A Level maths has risen because universities there care which subjects you achieved your grade in rather than just the grade itself.

jumpguy

sock puppet wrote: »

I duno. I find it hard to believe that only 15% of students are capable of sitting the honours paper. It doesn't require you to be very mathematically capable either. In the UK the numbers taking A Level maths has risen because universities there care which subjects you achieved your grade in rather than just the grade itself.

Hence I'm in favour of the bonus points with the current course, but not so much with an easier Project Maths course. There's no point giving someone an incentive for doing taking the challenge of HL maths, and then make HL maths less challenging...

That said, I haven't done much research into project maths, and I don't know to what extent they've made the maths course easier. It has made it easier though.

jumpguy

jumpguy wrote: »

Hence I'm in favour of the bonus points with the current course, but not so much with an easier Project Maths course. There's no point giving someone an incentive for doing taking the challenge of HL maths, and then make HL maths less challenging...

That said, I haven't done much research into project maths, and I don't know to what extent they've made the maths course easier. It has made it easier though.

How can you say one subject should have a greater reward because it's "harder" though? I reckon HL maths was the second-easiest subject I did. It's a subjective measure.

Jamie Starr

I think people who are good at HL Maths should be encouraged, regardless of what they go on to do at university, because it is the hardest subject in the standard Leaving Cert course. (Take a look at the failure rate folks, it ain't too subjective.) The people who are good at it usually score highly across the board in their other subjects anyway, and deservedly go into a different field in university; those who excel and go onto university level maths are an invaluable commodity- they're the students that colleges want, and the government wants.

Don't get me wrong, it would be sweet if drawings and funny short stories were an indispensable commodity, but I think the next hydronicmensilatorcombobulationsphere will always be a bit more important.

Agnostic Mantis

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

I think people who are good at HL Maths should be encouraged, regardless of what they go on to do at university, because it is the hardest subject in the standard Leaving Cert course. (Take a look at the failure rate folks, it ain't too subjective.) The people who are good at it usually score highly across the board in their other subjects anyway, and deservedly go into a different field in university; those who excel and go onto university level maths are an invaluable commodity- they're the students that colleges want, and the government wants.

Don't get me wrong, it would be sweet if drawings and funny short stories were an indispensable commodity, but I think the next hydronicmensilatorcombobulationsphere will always be a bit more important.

Even for subjects such as English? What about the maths students who don't do exceptionally well in all other subjects?

ohthebaby

Why reward somebody for doing higher maths when it's completely irrelevant to their future degree / job / whatever? It puts them at an unfair advantage over students who may not excel at maths but excel in the fields they want to pursue at third level. Why give somebody double points just because they a high level maths paper when they're trying to get into law or history or primary school teaching? It's not fair. The LC can seem unfair as it is at the minute, introduce bonus points just for sitting higher maths and it gets ridiculous.

EuropeanSon

Maths is the biggest course, the highest standard of difficulty (LC Higher Maths is tougher than A level maths, despite A level students having less subjects ( I was told this by a Scottish professor of Mathematics at the University of St. Andrews), whereas subjects like languages are a much lower standard than A level, for example) and is taken up by a very small minority of students at HL. I totally agree that it should be given bonus points if it remains in it's current form.

Project Maths is bullsh!t, and IMO a farcical dumbing down of the syllabus.

Jamie Starr

Deleted User wrote: »

Even for subjects such as English? What about the maths students who don't do exceptionally well in all other subjects?

Listen, I love English. I'm quite good at it and creatively. But third-level English and secondary-school English are too different things. A lot of big institutions don't have, for example, creative writing courses (the basis of LC Paper One). No-one has a degree in fiction writing. Being able to interpret the themes of king-ship in Macbeth, or express yourself on the subject of Keatsian poetry, might hep you out when you get to univeristy- but the majority of it is analysing texts that are 200 years old at this stage. It's not a progressive, job-market-driving line of study. Universities are about careers, degrees. Not developing artists.

For a student who excels at Maths but does poorly everywhere else, as I said, look to your own school experience: it's a rarity- but the jobs industry will still readily accept you, because you've got the kind of brain it wants. If you're a creative genius with English, but poor everywhere else, even the benefits of attending university are questionable.

Math is a more important subject than English in a university setting.

jumpguy

Deleted User wrote: »

How can you say one subject should have a greater reward because it's "harder" though? I reckon HL maths was the second-easiest subject I did. It's a subjective measure.

Even the lenght of the HL maths syllabus is notably longer than other subjects such as chemistry, and much more complex with no room really for rote-learning (at least not if you want an A and are EXTREMELY determined). In fairness Conor, you're a fairly unique spectrum of people who took HL maths, in a majority case, I think my argument holds.

I will say, however, that perhaps they bonus points should be more modest. Like only 25 extra for an A1, 20 for an A2, 15 for a B1, 10 for a B2 and 5 for a B3. But then again, this might then negate what they were meant to do - get more people doing HL maths!

While we're on the points for maths debate...I also believe there should be some points for FL. Yes, a few ITs do give points for A1, A2, B1, B2, B3. One of the biggest reasons the current syllabus has a high failure rate is because it was envisaged to be a 25:50:25 HL:OL:FL ratio of people doing the respective levels.

However, with FL maths being awarded no points, many people who are very poor at maths could not drop to FL even though it the most suitable level for them. Then again, there would be argument if giving incentives for people to do FL is a step in the wrong direction. I think that this is a key and often forgotten reason for the high failure rates in Irish maths though.

Namlub

Essentially bribing more people to do HL maths in order to bump up percentages isn't really getting to the the root of the problem (SEE WHAT I DID THAR) though, is it? It's probably going to work, because lots of students teeter between OL and HL and this offers them an incentive to stick with the latter, but it doesn't seem like a very long-term solution - the real issue that needs to be addressed is why only 15% students feel that they're capable of doing it. I have a (highly original and scientific theory) that most people have either a numbers brain or a words brain, which is why I don't agree with the bonus points applying to courses that have nothing to do with Maths - it could end up being at the expense of students who excel in other areas which are more relevant to that course. I hate how statistics-driven the whole thing seems to be anyway; we had a big talk this morning about how "concerned" the school is at the lack of people doing Physics. Bit late, first of all, and it's funny how they're only expressing concern now when 6 people is actually an improvement on previous years. At the end of the day, it's not our responsibilty to make sure they're meeting department quotas or whatever. /Essay

Agnostic Mantis

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

Listen, I love English. I'm quite good at it and creatively. But third-level English and secondary-school English are too different things. A lot of big institutions don't have, for example, creative writing courses (the basis of LC Paper One). No-one has a degree in fiction writing. Being able to interpret the themes of king-ship in Macbeth, or express yourself on the subject of Keatsian poetry, might hep you out when you get to univeristy- but the majority of it is analysing texts that are 200 years old at this stage. It's not a progressive, job-market-driving line of study. Universities are about careers, degrees. Not developing artists.

For a student who excels at Maths but does poorly everywhere else, as I said, look to your own school experience: it's a rarity- but the jobs industry will still readily accept you, because you've got the kind of brain it wants. If you're a creative genius with English, but poor everywhere else, even the benefits of attending university are questionable.

Math is a more important subject than English in a university setting.

Oh, I have no doubt, I'd be one of maths' strongest advocates, but I don't think bonus points help maths at all. I'm giving grinds each weekend to a student who is doing HL maths because they give bonus points for it in UL, where he wants to do Law and something-or-other.

Bonus points for maths aren't helping the goal of getting more students to take maths at university.

If the maths course at LC is really considered so difficult, the problem must be that the other subjects are trivial, because maths at LC as it stands isn't particularly challenging.

Jumpguy, I disagree with you on FL maths; getting an A in it is a sign of no more than basic numeracy.

sock puppet

EuropeanSon wrote: »

(LC Higher Maths is tougher than A level maths, despite A level students having less subjects ( I was told this by a Scottish professor of Mathematics at the University of St. Andrews),

You sure about this. He could have meant that it's easier to get a high grade in maths there (something like 40% get an A I think)

http://www.thepaperbank.co.uk/papers/AS-A%20Levels/Maths/Core/Core%204/C4_2005_June.pdf

Here's a link to a core A level paper. By question 3 we've already gotten to something not covered on the Irish course. Q7 - Vector equations isn't even touched upon here.

sock puppet

sock puppet wrote: »

You sure about this. He could have meant that it's easier to get a high grade in maths there (something like 40% get an A I think)

http://www.thepaperbank.co.uk/papers/AS-A%20Levels/Maths/Core/Core%204/C4_2005_June.pdf

Here's a link to a core A level paper. By question 3 we've already gotten to something not covered on the Irish course. Q7 - Vector equations isn't even touched upon here.

Oh, essentially that's part of LC, just we don't use such advanced notation for fear of scaring away yet more students.

It's just the parametric equation of a line, which is done for the LC.

jumpguy

sock puppet wrote: »

You sure about this. He could have meant that it's easier to get a high grade in maths there (something like 40% get an A I think)

http://www.thepaperbank.co.uk/papers/AS-A%20Levels/Maths/Core/Core%204/C4_2005_June.pdf

Here's a link to a core A level paper. By question 3 we've already gotten to something not covered on the Irish course. Q7 - Vector equations isn't even touched upon here.

Wow, that isn't too bad. There's some stuff I haven't done yet on it (integration) but the differenciation on it is fairly nice...

sock puppet

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh, I have no doubt, I'd be one of maths' strongest advocates, but I don't think bonus points help maths at all. I'm giving grinds each weekend to a student who is doing HL maths because they give bonus points for it in UL, where he wants to do Law and something-or-other.

Bonus points for maths aren't helping the goal of getting more students to take maths at university.

True. In fact now that I think of it points for arts courses tend to be higher than for maths (especially CS and engineering). Anyone now who wishes to take up either CS or Engineering in college can sit back and relax during 6th year safe in the knowledge that their C3 in honours maths effectively guarentees them their college place.

sock puppet

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh, essentially that's part of LC, just we don't use such advanced notation for fear of scaring away yet more students.

It's just the parametric equation of a line, which is done for the LC.

Ah. Didn't really read the question properly. Argh such a juvenille mistake:P

jumpguy wrote: »

Wow, that isn't too bad. There's some stuff I haven't done yet on it (integration) but the differenciation on it is fairly nice...

Yeah the difference isn't night and day. Although you should also remember that that paper is just one of their six modules.

sock puppet

sock puppet wrote: »

Ah. Didn't really read the question properly. Argh such a juvenille mistake:P

Well, actually... it is in 3 dimensions, although the maths isn't any different. Same old rote-learned formulae (or given-in-the-tables formulae these days).

I missed one of those - partial fraction decomposition is needed in the integration question, which doesn't really appear in LC.

Jamie Starr

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh, I have no doubt, I'd be one of maths' strongest advocates, but I don't think bonus points help maths at all. I'm giving grinds each weekend to a student who is doing HL maths because they give bonus points for it in UL, where he wants to do Law and something-or-other.

I doubt he'd drop to foundation Maths even if they weren't offering bonus points. He'd want as many points as he could get anyway, so he'd do HL.

Bonus points for maths aren't helping the goal of getting more students to take maths at university.

It helps the goal of getting more people to do HL Maths, which looks great to the government, shows progress.

If the maths course at LC is really considered so difficult, the problem must be that the other subjects are trivial, because maths at LC as it stands isn't particularly challenging.

Again, look at the failure rates. Every year after the LC results come out, the first reports are on the maths failure figures. That would suggest that it is rather challenging.

Jumpguy, I disagree with you on FL maths; getting an A in it is a sign of no more than basic numeracy.

Basic numeracy eh? I suppose they should actually deduct points from people who take HL Maths to make it a real test?

.

ohthebaby

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

Listen, I love English. I'm quite good at it and creatively. But third-level English and secondary-school English are too different things. A lot of big institutions don't have, for example, creative writing courses (the basis of LC Paper One). No-one has a degree in fiction writing. Being able to interpret the themes of king-ship in Macbeth, or express yourself on the subject of Keatsian poetry, might hep you out when you get to univeristy- but the majority of it is analysing texts that are 200 years old at this stage. It's not a progressive, job-market-driving line of study. Universities are about careers, degrees. Not developing artists.

For a student who excels at Maths but does poorly everywhere else, as I said, look to your own school experience: it's a rarity- but the jobs industry will still readily accept you, because you've got the kind of brain it wants. If you're a creative genius with English, but poor everywhere else, even the benefits of attending university are questionable.

Math is a more important subject than English in a university setting.

As this is a general discussion thread, I would like to say that I hate this attitude towards arts courses, it's one that I have encountered in college far too often. What makes maths more important than English? It's completely dependent on what sort of job or career you want to get into. I study arts subjects. One friend who is studying science in college pretty much laughed in my face when I said I was worried about my exams. His attitude was that all we had to do was turn up and we pretty much passed. Eh no. Arts subjects are challenging and far from rote learning or just bull****ting your way through an exam. You have to understand concepts, analyse things, be great at writing essays... I was smart in school yet find my course incredibly difficult most of the time. I study so hard but the standards in college are unbelievably high. It just annoys me that people look down their noses at me so often because they're studying for a 'real degree'.

Btw, this wasn't aimed at you, just a general observation.

EuropeanSon

sock puppet wrote: »

You sure about this. He could have meant that it's easier to get a high grade in maths there (something like 40% get an A I think)

http://www.thepaperbank.co.uk/papers/AS-A%20Levels/Maths/Core/Core%204/C4_2005_June.pdf

Here's a link to a core A level paper. By question 3 we've already gotten to something not covered on the Irish course. Q7 - Vector equations isn't even touched upon here.

No, I'm fairly certain as to his meaning. I was discussing entry into an accelerated maths course for well qualified candidates (which I was accepted into, but then turned down) and he said A1s in Maths and Applied Maths from Ireland would leave me better qualified than an A Level student who got As in Maths and Further Maths. He said they test students a lot more over here, apparently it's more in depth.

sock puppet

ohthebaby wrote: »

As this is a general discussion thread, I would like to say that I hate this attitude towards arts courses, it's one that I have encountered in college far too often. What makes maths more important than English? It's completely dependent on what sort of job or career you want to get into. I study arts subjects. One friend who is studying science in college pretty much laughed in my face when I said I was worried about my exams. His attitude was that all we had to do was turn up and we pretty much passed. Eh no. Arts subjects are challenging and far from rote learning or just bull****ting your way through an exam. You have to understand concepts, analyse things, be great at writing essays... I was smart in school yet find my course incredibly difficult most of the time. I study so hard but the standards in college are unbelievably high. It just annoys me that people look down their noses at me so often because they're studying for a 'real degree'.

Btw, this wasn't aimed at you, just a general observation.

While I've no experience of arts courses I do share a few classes with BESS in Trinity. The two courses we shared with them last year were our easiest courses and the maths they do was of a level far below what we're used to. There's no way anyone could argue that a business degree is as hard as a science/maths/computers/engineering degree. Of course this is just one particular course that happens to be relatively easy and it was only first year so it'd be wrong to assume the same for all courses.

Also the failure rate in science courses as opposed to arts courses is an objective (though you could argue inaccurate) way of measuring difficulty.

The failure rate for honours mathematics is 3.7%. That is not high.

The student in question told me he wanted to drop down to OL before he heard about the bonus points in UL.

What looks good for the Government doesn't necessarily help anybody else.

On the final point; my point was that FL maths doesn't really give an indication of competency in maths, and therefore isn't relevant to trying to trying to increase students doing maths at third level.
It's useful to ensure that the worst maths students don't get left behind without simple numerical skills, but due to its comparative ease, is much less useful as a factor for college course selection.

Pygmalion

I didn't read all of the above admittedly, so apologies if this has been mentioned before, but IMO the problem with Maths is nothing to do with difficulty, people just get it in their head that it's a hard subject and refuse to try it, even if they're perfectly capable.

I don't want to sound like an asshole but I never really found anything in the course particularly hard and I think if people put the effort in (and it was properly explained, as in actually explained,not just students being forced to rote-learn formulae) a lot more people would be able willing to do it.
There'd still be a lot of people genuinely not able for it, but that's the same for any subject.

The fact that

The failure rate for honours mathematics is 3.7%.

does kind of back that up, not much people do honours maths but those that do tend to do very well.
Perhaps if more of the strong OL students did it the numbers would be more "normal", but even the strong OL students seem to be convinced it's harder than it actually is.

Dumbing it down seems stupid since the problems IMO aren't really to do with difficulty, just people getting the wrong impressions and convincing themselves they can't do it (and perhaps the way it's laid out); Also a lot of university courses (particularly courses to do with engineering, science or computing) already have to spend a good portion of the first (and sometimes second) years explaining simple things that could have been taught in secondary school (or are alreayd taught, but only in HL), it's not an exaggeration to say that if secondary school maths is made easier (I just won't even bother commenting on "Project Maths") many technical courses will suffer.

There's also the non-trivial matter of how it's being taught/examined, I know people who've gotten A1s without properly understanding anything purely through rote-learning, I'd like to see a system in which this can't happen but the only way I could see that working is by making completely insane exams tbh.

As for entry requirements I'd like to see them tougher for certain Maths/Science/Engineering/Computer Science courses, but I'm not entirely sure I agree that it should be required for stuff like Law, which only requires a decent understanding of Logic, nothing hard and nothing on the LC course.
Might sound harsh (and it is) but tbh some courses you simply won't be able to do if you aren't very strong with maths, I think it's better to simply make that clear than to pretend OL (or barely passing HL) is ok just to keep the numbers up.

Jamie Starr

ohthebaby wrote: »

As this is a general discussion thread, I would like to say that I hate this attitude towards arts courses....

Btw, this wasn't aimed at you, just a general observation.

I'm not saying one course is of less/more importance or should be to students- I am an English student, and I resent the typical "Ah, yer doin' Arts are yeh?" label- but there's a prestige factor that goes with universities who have top Maths and Science students. Economically, they're degrees that matter the most for the development of the "smart economy".

Deleted User wrote:

The failure rate for honours mathematics is 3.7%. That is not high.

Only 16% of students sitting the Leaving Cert in the Summer did HL maths though.

As to your student, what's the big problem if UL want to hand him some extra points for working a little harder for a subject which causes difficulty every year, rather than dropping down?

As to Government interests not helping anyone else, there was a outpouring of concern by US companies this summer that if Ireland aren't pumping out HL students, it affects foreign investment, the driving force behind our economy.

I agree with you on the final point. I feel that students should choose whether they wish to continue studying Maths after Juniour Cert, since the general consensus is FL LC maths is just slightly tougher version of the JC HL. I would have loved to take up another subject in fourth year, I could have probably done honours music or something like that, but instead I had to study a subject I couldn't improve in, and get less points out of it.

Anyway, I've spent far too much time on this. Pretty soon I'll be adding the UL's English failure rate.