Has anyone here attend the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies LC Calculus Course?

Mr Pseudonym

"Due to the recent changes in the Leaving Certificate mathematics curriculum (Project Maths), the amount of calculus taught has been severely reduced. A ten-week course on Mathematical Calculus (was) given by Prof. T. C. Dorlas at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies"

Theoretical - Calculus Course | DIAS


Topics:

Elementary functions: polynomials and trigonometric functions and their graphs.
Limits and sequences.
Continuous functions.
Derivatives and differentiable functions.
Methods of differentiation: sum rule, product rule, quotient rule.
Graph sketching and asymptotes.
Definite integrals and area under a graph.
Primitive functions and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.
Rules of integration: substitution, integration by parts.
The exponential and logarithmic functions.
Other special functions.



I'd be really interested to hear the response of anyone who attended!

Exo

The Leaving Cert Calculus course only got easier; I honestly do not see the point of this, simply because there were changes in the curriculum. Most of the difficult sections from Integration have been removed (substitution etc., confused why it's within the topics of discussion), some from Differentiation, and parts of the OL course have been added to random sections throughout the framework of Calculus.

The whole curriculum has been dumbed down. However, I fear that the paper will increase in difficulty in relation to last years paper.

MegGustaa

I did it for 2 weeks in 2012 and didn't bother continuing. I was in 6th Year at the time, had done all the old course Calculus, and was doing it for a bit of extra Maths (I'm the type), and it was useless. Completely esoteric for a Leaving Cert student, teaching way above the level expected even in 1st Year college, according to my teacher at school. I'm quite competent in Maths and 'get' it easily in school, but these classes completely flummoxed me. Unless they've significantly changed the course content (like I said, I went the first year it was offered, in Nov 2012) I wouldn't bother. You'd be better off spending the two hours a week fine-tuning the Maths you need for Leaving Cert.

I think the Calculus on Project Maths is pitiful but realistically there wasn't *that* much more on the old course. You could learn the implicit differentiation that was on the old course in a single class period if you were in anyway decent at Maths, for example. I wouldn't really worry about being too behind going to college.

Mario95

If you like Maths you might try one of the MIT's open course-ware lectures.
I watched a good few of the Calculus and Linear Algebra ones and I think they are amazing. Not much use in the Leaving Cert but they are extremely interesting and fun to watch.

They are available for free on YouTube (LINK).

Anyway, see if you like it, if you don't then there isn't much point attending the DIAS ones I guess.

Ompala

MegGustaa wrote: »

I did it for 2 weeks in 2012 and didn't bother continuing. I was in 6th Year at the time, had done all the old course Calculus, and was doing it for a bit of extra Maths (I'm the type), and it was useless. Completely esoteric for a Leaving Cert student, teaching way above the level expected even in 1st Year college, according to my teacher at school. I'm quite competent in Maths and 'get' it easily in school, but these classes completely flummoxed me. Unless they've significantly changed the course content (like I said, I went the first year it was offered, in Nov 2012) I wouldn't bother. You'd be better off spending the two hours a week fine-tuning the Maths you need for Leaving Cert.

I think the Calculus on Project Maths is pitiful but realistically there wasn't *that* much more on the old course. You could learn the implicit differentiation that was on the old course in a single class period if you were in anyway decent at Maths, for example. I wouldn't really worry about being too behind going to college.

I have no idea what your teacher was thinking, all the stuff OP listed would be the basics covered in 1st year college maths, and a fair bit of that was on the old course too.

Mr Pseudonym

Exo wrote: »

The Leaving Cert Calculus course only got easier; I honestly do not see the point of this, simply because there were changes in the curriculum. Most of the difficult sections from Integration have been removed (substitution etc., confused why it's within the topics of discussion), some from Differentiation, and parts of the OL course have been added to random sections throughout the framework of Calculus.

The whole curriculum has been dumbed down. However, I fear that the paper will increase in difficulty in relation to last years paper.

You seem to be equating a reduction in topics with a dumbing down of the subject, and I don't think that that is necessarily valid. App Maths contradicts that equivalence: with the exception of questions 2, 6-SHM, and 10 (and trig formulas in 3 and 7), none of the mathematics is more advanced than would be found at JC-Level. Yet, some tricky questions can be posed. Personally, I'd rather a curriculum with basic topics that required difficult/original answers from students in the exam, than one with exotic topics whose exam questions were standard/repetitious.

I also think that it is wrong to teach an advanced branch of maths, such as calculus, to students who won't continue their maths education beyond school (It's not a "I'm never going to use it in the 'real world'" reason - I just feel students can more affectively be taught problem-solving skills, etc, through basic branches).

None of the above is to say that I think Project Maths is in any way ideal. As it happens, I think they had the right idea, but, by keeping the course so large, greatly reduced what could have been achieved. And, I think it is beyond question, that the standard required to get a B/C has decreased markedly.

MegGustaa wrote: »

I did it for 2 weeks in 2012 and didn't bother continuing. I was in 6th Year at the time, had done all the old course Calculus, and was doing it for a bit of extra Maths (I'm the type), and it was useless. Completely esoteric for a Leaving Cert student, teaching way above the level expected even in 1st Year college, according to my teacher at school. I'm quite competent in Maths and 'get' it easily in school, but these classes completely flummoxed me. Unless they've significantly changed the course content (like I said, I went the first year it was offered, in Nov 2012) I wouldn't bother. You'd be better off spending the two hours a week fine-tuning the Maths you need for Leaving Cert.

I think the Calculus on Project Maths is pitiful but realistically there wasn't *that* much more on the old course. You could learn the implicit differentiation that was on the old course in a single class period if you were in anyway decent at Maths, for example. I wouldn't really worry about being too behind going to college.

Thanks for your response. One wonders what they are hoping to achieve by holding them. If, as you suggest, the course material isn't especially helpful for the LC (and, I think if it were, they'd effectively be giving subsidised grinds to Dublin-based students), then it's solely about prepping people for college. But, I imagine that no more than a hundred attend (and likely far fewer), so it's hardly going to have much affect on the standard of first-year STEM students.

Ompala wrote: »

I have no idea what your teacher was thinking, all the stuff OP listed would be the basics covered in 1st year college maths, and a fair bit of that was on the old course too.

I'm sure that it is treated in a more rigorous or accelerated fashion than standard LC, but for the teacher to conclude that the content of a twenty-hour course is, not only equal to, but "way above" first-year college maths is plainly wrong. To put it in perspective, TCD Maths has approx one hundred hours of calculus in first year. Also, though the list of topics doesn't preclude the level of difficulty going far beyond LC, as Ompala said, the basics of much of those topics were on the previous LC course.

Mario95 wrote: »

If you like Maths you might try one of the MIT's open course-ware lectures.
I watched a good few of the Calculus and Linear Algebra ones and I think they are amazing. Not much use in the Leaving Cert but they are extremely interesting and fun to watch.

They are available for free on YouTube (LINK).

Anyway, see if you like it, if you don't then there isn't much point attending the DIAS ones I guess.

Thanks for that. I killed a summer of mine doing some of those! I'm actually in college, though, so I would imagine my turning up to the Dublin Institute would look a bit odd (though I did consider it!!).

MegGustaa

Ompala wrote: »

I have no idea what your teacher was thinking, all the stuff OP listed would be the basics covered in 1st year college maths, and a fair bit of that was on the old course too.

Yeah, see, you would think that from the list, but what was actually taught in the class was not at all at a level that even followed on from the Leaving Cert difficulty-wise. The object of the lessons was seemingly to compensate for the reduction of calculus, meaning we'd be equally well-prepared as those who'd done the old course for college, with a bit extra. But from the get-go, it was taught completely differently from secondary school maths and was very difficult. Like I said, I did the old course Calculus, and found this to be useless.

MegGustaa

Also on the thing about it being 'way beyond' 1st Year Maths, that wasn't exactly what was said, but the some of the things we were expected to grasp were ideas/topics you wouldn't encounter until perhaps late 1st Year/2nd Year, depending on the actual course you were taking. Some particularly abstract theories of differential calculus as I remember it, and not taught in a way that made any sense. That's not to say the entire class was taught as if we had 1+ years of third level Maths under our belts.

But sure, maybe I'm just thick and that's why I didn't get it.

Ompala

MegGustaa wrote: »

Yeah, see, you would think that from the list, but what was actually taught in the class was not at all at a level that even followed on from the Leaving Cert difficulty-wise. The object of the lessons was seemingly to compensate for the reduction of calculus, meaning we'd be equally well-prepared as those who'd done the old course for college, with a bit extra. But from the get-go, it was taught completely differently from secondary school maths and was very difficult. Like I said, I did the old course Calculus, and found this to be useless.

MegGustaa wrote: »

Also on the thing about it being 'way beyond' 1st Year Maths, that wasn't exactly what was said, but the some of the things we were expected to grasp were ideas/topics you wouldn't encounter until perhaps late 1st Year/2nd Year, depending on the actual course you were taking. Some particularly abstract theories of differential calculus as I remember it, and not taught in a way that made any sense. That's not to say the entire class was taught as if we had 1+ years of third level Maths under our belts.

But sure, maybe I'm just thick and that's why I didn't get it.

If you were in 6th year on November 2012 you couldn't have done all the old course calculus because you were missing the calculus option on paper 2, unless you taught it to yourself perhaps?
Some of the stuff you encounter in college doesn't start off at leaving cert difficulty anyways, it happens
Would think people would be better off just picking up an old copy of the maths books and just learning the old stuff from them tbh.

Mario95

This is a bit off the topic, but can anyone tell me how is Project Maths calculus different from the Old course calculus.

Mr Pseudonym

Mario95 wrote: »

This is a bit off the topic, but can anyone tell me how is Project Maths calculus different from the Old course calculus.

Integration has all but been removed. Where it is has been retained, it seems only to be to demonstrate that it is the reverse operation of differentiation, and some of its very basic applications. Obviously, there is a vast amount of the field of calculus that is not taught, but, by not teaching integration by parts and substitution (effectively the counterparts to chain and product rules, and which were on the previous syllabus), they are giving a misleading, un-representative (and, I would say, meaningless) introduction to integration.

Whereas, before, the calculus was almost entirely theoretical (with a very occasional nod to some kinematics application and some contrived question in the Further Calculus elective (e.g. maximum volume of a cylinder inscribed in a particular sphere), now it is almost the exact opposite.

It is beyond any question that the calculus on the current syllabus is markedly less advanced. But, I will say that I think one could be relatively successful on the old course without understanding the material; on this one, though the material is inherently easier, students are rewarded for understanding it. Ofc, for the highest achieving students who most likely would have understood the old syllabus material anyway, it has stunted their mathematics education.


*I should add a caveat that I did not study under the current syllabus (the last not to!), and all my views are based on having done some of the past papers, having flicked through a book, and having glanced at the very unspecific syllabus. Therefore, though I stand by the integrity of the above (!), it's more than possible that I have misrepresented or omitted