JackTC wrote: » Not a Maths teacher but I did study Mathematics education years ago before deciding against teaching, although I still keep up to date with what's going on in the syllabus. They should have kept the old course as it was and not bothered with the bonus points. The a, b, c format of questions worked - students knew that if they found the part c's too difficult then they should drop down to pass. All this push to try and get students to do honours maths just hurts them in the long run. So many of my own subjects suffered because the maths took up so much of my time.
noplacehere wrote: » Interesting question up on one of the Facebook groups about students at the wrong level in maths and refusing to drop until the last minute. There are then knock on effects on their OL grades and their maths ability Are there many maths teachers here? It’s an interesting one. I think the LCHL course is in long enough now for a proper discussion My feelings 1. The course is ridiculously long for a course encouraging in depth practise and with project maths context questions. I don’t know any school teaching it within 180hrs. Students and teachers are doing extra classes, arguing for extra classes on the timetables, giving whole chapters to be studied at home to cover it which is insane. The removal of choice has amplified this. While the old course was long almost all teachers left sections out. 2. The bonus points in conjunction with 30% points have done massive damage. While they may ‘help’ keep the numbers up at LCHL the students at the bottom end are not grasping pretty much anything. Any of them who end up with any maths in their course in college will be worse off in my opinion than those who worked in OL all along and have a decent grounding as opposed to everything going over their heads 3. Students dropping late has murdered any love they had for maths and students are demoralised, they have failed and failed and failed by the time they drop which is just awful. Students dropping late or being at the wrong level is also affecting the pace of classes which has knock on impacts on the rest of the class
Newbie20 wrote: » I’d agree with all this. When Project Maths came in a number of years back I’d be sent to inservices and I’d come away with good ideas for the class. But sure I couldn’t use much of it anyway because of time constraints. The course is just too long and as you says that means that none of the topics can be dealt with in any great depth. The bonus points was a pure disaster and as you say, coupled with the 30% pass has made a bit of a farce of it. Students don’t take the advice to drop anymore because they are blinded by the bonus points. Eventually after the Mocks, they realise that you were right all along.
noplacehere wrote: » 2. The bonus points in conjunction with 30% points have done massive damage. While they may ‘help’ keep the numbers up at LCHL the students at the bottom end are not grasping pretty much anything.
JackTC wrote: » All this push to try and get students to do honours maths just hurts them in the long run. So many of my own subjects suffered because the maths took up so much of my time.
Hopontop wrote: » I was going to complain about how in my school maths is put on a pedestal above the other subjects (It gets 6 x 40 mins class in both 5th & 6th year, compared to 4 classes then 5 classes for other subjects), this leads to students putting much more of their time and effort into Maths at the expense of the others. However if the course is as long as others are stating here then maybe it’s justified.
derb12 wrote: » I fully agree with everything stated above. Further to all that, I have major concerns for our current 3rd years who will be in for a real shock, especially those who are heading straight into that course in a few months with even less maths (no concept of a proof, and little gaps like cones, IQR, DMS etc) At least they are all totally independent learners and brilliant researchers now (which was the point of CBAs apparently) so I’m sure it’ll all be fine!
RealJohn wrote: » The bonus points were a good idea, terribly implemented. They should always have been for C3 up (and now, H4 or H5, depending on which one they decide), not for scraping a pass. My understanding was that the bonus points were to encourage students who were able for higher level but didn’t think the extra effort was worth it (because they didn’t need HL for whatever course they wanted) to stick with it. Instead, by awarding the points for a pass, it’s done exactly what you’ve said: it’s encouraged students who are not able for it to stick with it hoping they’ll scrape a pass but inevitably failing (and a H7 is a fail - being awarded some points for it doesn’t change that). Of course awarding points for a H7 was an inevitable consequence of stupidly awarding the bonus points for scraping 40%. Someone obviously realised they we’re screwing students over but that they couldn’t raise the bonus points mark, so instead, they decided to reward students who didn’t fail that badly when they picked a level they’re not able for. The whole thing is a farce.The course itself isn’t terrible, but the old one was better. We’re supposedly trying to promote STEM but somehow, in their wisdom, the powers that be decided that dumbing down the maths on the maths course while massively ramping up the reading comprehension was the best way to do this. Again, they need to reverse this. If they really want to keep the reading comprehension in, make the parts (a) and (b) of the questions just on the maths, and let them do the reading comprehension in the part (c)s, because in my experience, the very wordy questions penalise the weaker students, who are quite capable of working the maths out but aren’t able to understand the questions. I appreciate that being able to see the maths in the question is the point of those, but surely, in a maths exam, the main aim should be test the students’ ability in maths, not in reading comprehension. End of part one (because I’m sure I have more to rant about, but I can’t think of it right now).
RealJohn wrote: » 30% is not a pass. They get points for it, but it’s not a pass.
Jane98 wrote: » I recall reading somewhere that the course was designed to be taught over 200 hours at senior cycle. I would love to see the department's workings on this. I wonder would a freedom of information request provide this? Also, given that so many experienced Maths teachers are having difficulty teaching the course within the given class allocations, I would love to hear if any of the regional or the National Maths Teachers Association has actually communicated this to the Department?
am_zarathustra wrote: » 180 hours but also use deconstructivist techniques to "discover" concepts. Every maths teacher I know complains about it constantly. There's nothing wrong with choice on the paper. There are small stand alones that could be removed like complex numbers if they want to depth of knowledge in calculus etc.
Treppen wrote: » I vaguely recall one of the main reasons why they got rid of choice was that everyone was just not bothering with probability part of the course. Is it safe to say that: 1. Almost every school is putting on extra classes. 2. Every teacher is under pressure to finish the course so no time for discovery approach. 3. Numbers in HL have increased, but at the bottom end of ability.
noplacehere wrote: » I don't know any school not doing extra classes. Anecdotally it is also beginning to lead to reluctance to take on the HL class and definitely not two HL classes due to the extra "voluntary" work and pressure on the teacher
jam17032010 wrote: » Well, what did we think of paper 1? I thought with the choice this year that students would have loads of time in the exam but I felt the questions were that bit tougher and made it a longer paper than anticipated? Also, did anyone else feel that the paper was repetitive at times. Differentiating polynomials and solving quadratics came up a lot for example. I don't think it's a good sign of a paper to assess the same skills over and over. Why not mix it up a bit more? No financial maths for example? Edit: i was reading the rte.ie student diaries earlier and it was mentioned that: "The changes to the exam meant that Geography students could potentially leave out half of the course, answering just three questions from 24". That is staggering IMO. Fair play to the Geography students and more power to them, but we really hammer them in maths exams. With little choice and forcing them to cover every inch of a bloated course.
jam17032010 wrote: » Well, what did we think of paper 1? I thought with the choice this year that students would have loads of time in the exam but I felt the questions were that bit tougher and made it a longer paper than anticipated? Also, did anyone else feel that the paper was repetitive at times. Differentiating polynomials and solving quadratics came up a lot for example. I don't think it's a good sign of a paper to assess the same skills over and over. Why not mix it up a bit more? No financial maths for example?
am_zarathustra wrote: » Financial maths is a tiny section, very little challenge either if you don't link it to S and S really. I generally find the kids who are very good at maths don't really enjoy it and the ones who are hoping to scrape H5/6 love it. I suppose it's back to the same problem then. Fair enough paper I thought, definitely a lean towards calculas the last couple of years. I'd agree with above, Q10 was the trickiest, I'll be interested to see the marking scheme on that given the language. Interesting to see paper 2 now. Trig looks a good bet for sure.
