Project Maths

Michael Collins · 10-06-2011 10:25PM

bluewolf wrote: »

You're complaining about the opportunity of getting bonus points?

They won't be introduced until LC 2012. So yes, you're out of luck S.K23 I'm afraid.

S.K23 · 11-06-2011 09:07AM

NO,
I'm complaining about the fact that project maths students were put at a disadvantage,
so we should have recieve something to balance it out.... make us in the same position as the students doing the old course,
the only thing that allowed that was the sample paper 2011 which was a base model for 2011 L.C paper1,

in the end even that was taken away from us,
Some people actually need to do well in maths..
you know, to go into college and stuff,

Typical Ireland,
Theres a reason why Ireland is going down hill,
lack of preparation for what you do is one of the main things Irish people need to get straightened out first, and PROJECT MATHS IS AN EXAMPLE OF SUCH LACK OF PREPARATION,

Eliot Rosewater · 11-06-2011 09:24AM

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 · 11-06-2011 10:21AM

Malty_T wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I hope you don't think I was arguing that learning by rote was a good
thing! What I was saying was that learning by rote is encouraged under
both the old & new syllabus. Obviously project maths is designed so as
to reduce the learning by rote approach but the structure of the system,
which I distinguish from the syllabus, is designed so as to reward learning
by rote regardless of whether a student knows the material or not. It's
madness to teach students how to deal with trigonometric graphs if they
can barely graph quadratic functions but that happens, that's a big part
of why students don't understand the material - they are doing all this
new stuff without the foundation to do it. The current model of teacher
& blackboard simply can't change that, there's no way a teacher could
stop every 30 seconds to help a student who is confused about step 3
& then lost for the rest of the class because the teacher can't go back
30 pages to show him/her why this makes sense. At best it causes the
learning by rote of what seem like disparate facts unless a student can
make the connection. Obviously they don't, I certainly didn't back then.
Obviously there are many more reasons than just lacking the foundations
but I think they all can be explained in a way that illustrates why the
current system prevents these issues from being corrected.

Permabear wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I understand that, my comment was not about the fact that they changed
the syllabus or that they need to change the syllabus. My comment was
about the structure of the system in which the syllabus operates. The
current system is the reason why comments such as this:

S.K23 wrote: »

The fact that we never leard how to apprach questions ( QUESTON 5 2011 L.C) make it extremely difficult.

...

We were never told that such a question was on the course. We don't expect to know whats coming up, obviously, but what I expect is that students should know whats ACTAULLY ON THE COURSE.

exist. The system as it stands requires students to worry themselves sick
about what may or may not come up. I know the purpose of education
is to learn everything so that you don't need to worry about what's
coming up, ideally you should know all of it, but again the sad fact is
that most students don't. This is why the 20-30% is considered optimal,
it's recognition of the fact that most students aren't learning everything.
I think people really believe that it's a question of intelligence & just
accept it, maybe that's wrong but it doesn't matter what rationalization
people are using. The fact is that 20-30% is considered optimal, maybe
not possible, & students are forced to learn how to approach questions
& memorize patterns based on past papers instead of how to approach
the material. It doesn't matter how interesting the material is:

S.K23 wrote: »

your lives won't have much effect because of this. OURS WILL.

Again I don't blame anybody in particular, don't take this as some
criticism of teachers or project maths. As far as I can see all that
project maths has done in the eyes of many students is to make it
harder to have a future because they're going to learn the material
in more or less the same way, hopefully it will be a bit more intuitive,
but still it's mostly the old way (so you'll expect the old results, maybe
a bit better). Still the general rules are the same so I just said it was
highly unfair for criticizing students for playing the game according to
the rules that the people who structure the curriculum allow for. If you
want students to stop worrying about what may or may not come up on
test day then creating a new test isn't exactly the smartest thing to do.

The model of both the education & examination process needs to be
fundamentally revised, modern technology has made it possible but
I really do not believe it has been exploited to it's full capabilities yet.
Project maths maybe good for some students but w/ an optimal 30%
expected from PM means 70% are excluded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs

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?

mulciber · 13-06-2011 01:05AM

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.

amacachi · 13-06-2011 01:17AM

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

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.

I really can't believe they're trying to deny just how simple the reworked syllabus is. I wouldn't be particularly strong at maths and it's a few years since I did much but there was one part of one question that I would have struggled with in PM this year.

Agreed on the moaning about that question, isn't that just a parametric type that they put up all the time except this year it was spelled out for them exactly what to do?

7Vecrophiliac · 20-07-2011 12:08AM

mulciber wrote: »

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.

Ye, im in the same boat as u(except im a 5th year repeat).But, I can give u some advice.LC 2013, will be project maths phase 2; which means that paper one and paper 2 will be altered.The only thing that doesnt change is Diffrenciation 1&2 and intgreation,until of course phase 3 for 2014.So, if u want to learn sumthing over the summer u can use all the marking schemes up on SEC for questions 6,7 & 8(for the old syllabus) and Khanacademy material on calculus.This is not the same for algebra,stats and well everything else on the course;because each topic has radically changed(except for questions 6,7&8),for ecample compare say ....... PM paper for 2011 with old syllabus paper 2009.Of course you could simply buy all the new PM maths books out there.............. but id say u dont have a school book list and u dont want to buy anything ur teacher wont use.

P.S project maths sucks............. its no longer true mathematics ..... its simply a **** load of stats and learning Laws..... e.g why is the root of 3 not a rational number.Its kinda of like physics.

Turtwig · 20-07-2011 04:09PM

Now I really gotta ask are you insinuating that physics sucks?:mad:

LeixlipRed · 20-07-2011 04:23PM

7Vecrophiliac wrote: »

Ye, im in the same boat as u(except im a 5th year repeat).But, I can give u some advice.LC 2013, will be project maths phase 2; which means that paper one and paper 2 will be altered.The only thing that doesnt change is Diffrenciation 1&2 and intgreation,until of course phase 3 for 2014.So, if u want to learn sumthing over the summer u can use all the marking schemes up on SEC for questions 6,7 & 8(for the old syllabus) and Khanacademy material on calculus.This is not the same for algebra,stats and well everything else on the course;because each topic has radically changed(except for questions 6,7&8),for ecample compare say ....... PM paper for 2011 with old syllabus paper 2009.Of course you could simply buy all the new PM maths books out there.............. but id say u dont have a school book list and u dont want to buy anything ur teacher wont use.

P.S project maths sucks............. its no longer true mathematics ..... its simply a **** load of stats and learning Laws..... e.g why is the root of 3 not a rational number.Its kinda of like physics.

Please use proper grammar and punctuation, this is an internet forum not a text message.

Also why is root 3 not a rational number is neither statistics nor learning a law, contradiction much?

7Vecrophiliac · 21-07-2011 04:28PM

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Please use proper grammar and punctuation, this is an internet forum not a text message.

Also why is root 3 not a rational number is neither statistics nor learning a law, contradiction much?

Ye,sorry.I was a bit rushed, the 'P.S' part is a bit of a contradiction.

I guess what im trying to say about project maths is that its kinda like a Hard version of the JC.Its the type of exam that insists on the candidate to be able to think on his feet; but in terms of translating english into maths and writing some answers in sentences.For example, take a look at 2011-section B and maybe question 4.Best example is the gold carat rating question,its an algebra question that takes alot of logical thinking, (trying to find out what every sentences means in terms of math) but the operations or calculations of the question are rather basic (mainly simple simultaneous equations and ratios).Furhermore, its about 1 A4 page long.

Now, compare this to 2008 question 1.The language is very straightforward its 50 marks and its only 3-5 lines.This is the type of question that puts alot of influence(sorry if its bad english) on the amount of material you have learned (e.g proving identities,cubic equations and rational functions).The operations are much harder to do; but its straightforward and there isnt alot of 'language'.

Lastly, if you take this into account along with the fact that matrices and vectors are gone; then project maths begins to beg the question -'Is it better to make LC maths have alot of learning and what i think is more mathematical reasoning e.g Abstract inequalties, matrices, factor theorems and quadratic equations (alpha and beta) or is it better make simple operations e.g simultaneous equations and simple quadratic equations have alot of english and logical reasoning(in terms of translating english to maths)?'

I now i only looked at algebra, but i think this is a good enuf example.

7Vecrophiliac · 21-07-2011 09:23PM

Malty_T wrote: »

Now I really gotta ask are you insinuating that physics sucks?:mad:

No, i didnt mean to insuate that.

Project Maths

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