Chocolate Lions wrote: » They have a good system and a good attitude to education. And because of that they produce good teachers and it's a respected profession. Good teachers make good students, and it's cyclical, but the Scandinavian countries are pretty unique in all sorts of ways. No, I think the UK is a mess. But, there are some woeful excuses for teachers out there that don't understand the math or science etc. that they're teaching. Your attitude seems to be to ignore that fact completely, there should be some recourse there, but not inspectors, no. That an educator should pass a test and have concepts involved in the subjects they teach. I don't think that should be too much to ask, maybe every 2 or 3 years even. No standard questions but to give account for whatever is in their area, with room for appeal and everything else. I think a good few would struggle. How is my suggestion?
steddyeddy wrote: » I don't think it is. Lets illustrate the current situation. Right now entry into science in UCD is around 500 points. So basically you want to be able to do well in each subject to to get the required points. So lets say you get an A plus in chemistry, physics and maths but get a c or D in Geography or French you might miss out on science. Therefore according to our college entry testing system you wouldn't make a good scientist. F%$ off. You might think if it aint broke then why fix it? Well I think it is broke. The proof in the pudding is performance. As the points for science has risen we should expect to see an increase in test scores in science? We don't in fact what we get is students who are good at learning facts. The real evidence is in the science 4th year project. You basically have to find something out. E.G some students might have to determine the serotonin levels in certain cells for example. This project involves creativity, thinking outside the box and the application of facts. This is were many brilliant leaving cert students fail the module. The leaving cert doesn't correctly match a student's talents to the correct course IMHO. This isn't just the case for science IMHO. It applies to all disciplines. The leaving cert puts too much pressure on students to learn irrelevant facts and develop irrelevant skills IMHO.
Deenie123 wrote: » Sure, it'd require a little bit extra effort on the CAO's behalf but I think it would solve a lot of the gripes that people have with the current Leaving Cert - CAO points combination that's used to determine college entry.
CelticRambler wrote: » As it is, a lot of 18-19 year olds are using 1st Yr in uni as their 'gap year' which is a huge waste of resources, and unnecessarily raises the points required through Mammy's Boys (and Girls) applying for and taking places on courses that never inspired them.
Magnate wrote: » I don't see the issue with CAO at all. The leaving cert may be flawed and inadequate preparation for college however it is fair, and it does reward hard work equally as much as natural ability. Say for example a student wants to study science in college and is good at science-y subjects. They can study Maths Physics Chemistry Biology Agricultural Science That's close to 525 points in the bag in subjects which they probably have a great aptitude for. Now lets say they have to study english and irish too. They can either put a bit of effort into them and improve, or drop to ordinary level and study more than 6 subjects. If they were so inclined they could do pure rote learning subjects which require only effort (eg. business) and pick up the points that way. It's a good determination of a person's work ethic at the very least.
TheBegotten wrote: » The Leaving Cert is a good way to determine if someone is right for further education in general. .....It actually works pretty well, as long as people know what they want.......
steddyeddy wrote: » How is it fair. Someone who's better at science could be crap at two other non science related subjects and miss out on science. Getting an A in chemistry does not make you a great chemist. Basically it's a memory test.
eternal wrote: » Chemistry is the LC includes equations and what not, it is not a memory based exam.
eternal wrote: » English definitely isn't memory based as it is interpretive and Art also, how can you learn off how to draw? Maths is something you have to do practically, there is no way you can learn off a Maths exam. What about the Aurals and Oral tests, nobody knows what is coming up and you have to listen and speak in a different language which is, one again, interpretive. It's cognitive and the reason there is a LC is to whittle down the people early on in society who are willing to learn and reform in some way. Then you have PLC courses for those who did not have the ability in school and they still get into university. You can always learn a trade if you aren't academic. Stuff like catering which allows creativity for those who did not have the means to become doctors and what not. We are all different people but exams have to start somewhere and when people tell me they couldn't even manage a LC I wonder as to where this person will end up. I suppose someone has to clean the streets and sell fags in shops.
looking_around wrote: » maths too, I remember helping people struggle greatly with maths, because the teacher would think "learning the method" = "understanding the method". Students who would spend hours writing out these steps, with no understanding as to WHY they are doing it. I would try and then show them why. Once you understand what's going on, maths is a blast. But too many teachers cannot teach. This is the real issue of course. Too many teachers can't teach.
Deenie123 wrote: » That's not a problem with the leaving cert, that's a problem with the teaching methods used. When you look at what it takes to get an A1 in any leaving cert higher level paper, I'm sorry but it's not all rote learning. You just won't get the A1 if you're going to rely on rote learning, there has to actually be quite a bit of understanding and ability to apply knowledge. Hey and guess what? Real life has rote learning in it, too. Sometimes you just have to learn off certain things. Does a doctor learn how to synthesize a drug to treat a specific infection, or do they just learn off which drug is appropriate for which type of infection? The leaving cert isn't bad. There are some problems with how college applications are handled, and many problems with how subjects are taught (problems mostly related to certain under-qualified teachers who don't understand the subject themselves), but regarding the syllabus I think it's fair. I'd ideally like to see repeat sittings made available at the end of August for those who fail an exam (similar to college students) where the result is capped at a pass. But I've yet to see a wholly better system that is flawless or fairer than an entirely anonymous procedure.
Deenie123 wrote: » That's not a problem with the leaving cert, that's a problem with the teaching methods used.When you look at what it takes to get an A1 in any leaving cert higher level paper, I'm sorry but it's not all rote learning. You just won't get the A1 if you're going to rely on rote learning, there has to actually be quite a bit of understanding and ability to apply knowledge. Hey and guess what? Real life has rote learning in it, too. Sometimes you just have to learn off certain things. Does a doctor learn how to synthesize a drug to treat a specific infection, or do they just learn off which drug is appropriate for which type of infection? The leaving cert isn't bad. There are some problems with how college applications are handled, and many problems with how subjects are taught (problems mostly related to certain under-qualified teachers who don't understand the subject themselves), but regarding the syllabus I think it's fair. I'd ideally like to see repeat sittings made available at the end of August for those who fail an exam (similar to college students) where the result is capped at a pass. But I've yet to see a wholly better system that is flawless or fairer than an entirely anonymous procedure.
Magnate wrote: » As a current 6th year aiming for a course that requires very close to 600 points I have to disagree. Yes, some subjects are more about understanding (eg. maths, some languages & sciences) Others are skills that must be practised to be developed (eg. english, art, etc.) Some are not supposed to be rote learned but rote learning works perfectly (eg. Irish, where if you want to get the A1 and you're not fluent and from a Gaeltacht area, it's time to memorise reams for both the written and the oral.) Then other subjects are nothing but rote learning. (eg. business, history, geography) Now before you argue that these require you to give your opinion to get the A1, realise that opinions are not some seemingly unlearnable thing - they can be memorised. I even find that even the new textbooks have adapted to this. (Eg. Evaluation: This is good because X, Y, Z.) I think that certain aspects of the leaving cert are great, like the anonymity of it all but it's far from a perfect system. I'm not really complaining either, as someone who excels at rote learning I know that my efforts will be rewarded in June and I'll get the course I want, and then proceed to fail miserably at college because of my inability to think critically. Oh well,
steddyeddy wrote: » The leaving cert puts too much pressure on students to learn irrelevant facts and develop irrelevant skills IMHO.
steddyeddy wrote: » Sorry but the science subjects are memorising science facts. Well rounded? Fantastic but that has nothing to do with science.
Deenie123 wrote: » Here's the thing, people who get 600 points and go to college and do miserably... Do so because of other reasons - like being in a course they hate. Anyone will do poorly in a course they hate. If you can take one piece of advise from this thread, and I'm speaking as someone who did exactly this, if you start your course and within the first month or two don't like it - leave. Go back next year and start a new course with your free fees intact because you withdrew early enough. People also do poorly because they're too immature for college - school can't speed up maturity. That's what parents are supposed to do.
The Leaving Cert rewards rote learning and does not reward problem solving, critical thinking or self directed learning; therefore many students arrive in college with insufficient capacity for independent thinking or learning.
The Leaving Cert is an outdated, crude and brutal instrument. It is long overdue for fundamental reform. It perpetuates a system of learning that poorly prepares students for either the realities of third level education or modern life in general. This high-stakes exam, taken at a particular stage of a student’s life, does not reflect their performance throughout their years in school. It only measures a small segment of an individual’s intellectual ability and completely ignores many human competencies that are crucial for personal success. At its core, it is a test of memory and writing. It forces our young people to become adept at a two week long marathon of fast and legible hand writing – a skill that they will never ever need again and that has long become obsolete. The ability to evaluate, research and critically assess The exam is a test of knowledge of ‘the right answer’ rather than a test of the ability to evaluate, research and critically assess. When students do arrive at their first year in college they are required to sign a ‘non-plagiarism statement’ to affirm that the work submitted is their own. It beggars belief that our system actually drills students for six years to do precisely the opposite. A much wider range of skills needs to be assessed in order to give young people an accurate picture of their capabilities and knowledge. This broader means of assessment is also necessary to ensure that students are properly prepared for third level education. Far too much of first year of college is devoted to changing the learning style of students and far too many students drop out when they find themselves unable to adjust
Deenie123 wrote: » And the point has already been made - in life you will sometimes have to learn things off. The ability to just learn something off quickly is actually important in life and, I say this without intending to be condescending, students who complain about it probably just haven't been exposed to situations where you just have to know something. Example: what's the single person's tax credit? €1650. You just have to know it. Another example: What's the density of water? 1000kg/cubic metre. And THEN you need to know how to apply it.
Deenie123 wrote: » I don't accept that a student can get 600 points off the back of rote learning and rote learning only. Those students usually understand a good bit (maybe more than they will give credit for themselves), which can usually be determined when you ask them to explain something to you
Tarzana2 wrote: » I don't agree that all the skills you learn are irrelevant. It shows that to do well, you need to knuckle down, that working hard for what you want is important and you reap what you sow. It teaches you to manage your time cleverly and effectively. I think something like a PhD is as much slogging as thinking (90% perspiration, 10% inspiration) and it trains you well for this.
Magnate wrote: » Why memorise facts that are a click away?
Super-Rush wrote: » If you wanted to get into software development, what use is Irish, French, history, geography to you? The subjects being done presently in the first year of computer science programs should be taught in LC level.
steddyeddy wrote: » Is the leaving cert the best way to determine if a student is right for college?
Deenie123 wrote: » Are you actually kidding me? Do you really need that explained?
Has the Internet dumbed down society or simply become an external storage unit that enhances the human brain's memory capacity? With Google, Internet Movie Database and Wikipedia at our beck and call via smart phones, tablets and laptops, the once essential function of committing facts to memory has become little more than a flashback to flash cards. This shift is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it irreversible, according to a team of researchers whose study on search engines and learning appears in the July 15 issue of Science. Led by Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow, the researchers conducted a series of experiments whose results suggest that when people are faced with difficult questions, they are likely to think that the Internet will help them find the answers. In fact, those who expect to able to search for answers to difficult questions online are less likely to commit the information to memory. People tend to memorize answers if they believe that it is the only way they will have access to that information in the future. Regardless of whether they remember the facts, however, people tend to recall the Web sites that hold the answers they seek.In this way, the Internet has become a primary form of external or "transactive" memory (a term coined by Sparrow's one-time academic advisor, social psychologist Daniel Wegner), where information is stored collectively outside the brain. This is not so different from the pre-Internet past, when people relied on books, libraries and one another—such as using a "lifeline" on the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?—for information. Now, however, besides oral and printed sources of information, a lion's share of our collective and institutional knowledge bases reside online and in data storage. The idea for Sparrow's research sprang from a common occurrence in many homes—a few years ago she was watching a movie with her husband and saw an actress whose face she could not quite place. Using Internet Movie Database on her laptop, she quickly discovered that the actress was Angela Lansbury (debuting in 1944's Gaslight), who went on to star in dozens of movies and the popular Murder, She Wrote TV show of the 1980s and '90s. What would Sparrow's alternatives have been if the Internet never existed? Most likely, if she could not eventually come up with the answer herself, she would have asked a friend or family member for help. Another option would have been to consult a cinema reference book. Or she would have simply had to live with that nagging curiosity and moved on.The situation with the Internet is in many ways not all that different than it ever was, Sparrow says. "It's different in the sense that information is much more available than it was," she says. "In the past you would have to go through the filing system in your brain, maybe with the help of someone else to try to remember."Some people are troubled that information gleaned online plays too large a role in their fact-access process, yet this reliance on external memory seems to bother them less if the information resides in the brain of another person. "It's not as salient to people that we do this with other people, but it's obvious to them that we do this with the Internet," Sparrow says. Besides, memorization is overrated, according to Sparrow. "Obviously we need some baseline skill in memorizing things, but I personally have never seen all that much intellectual value in memorizing things," she says, adding that it is far more important to understand information on a conceptual level. As an instructor, she has seen how some students struggle with cognition related to the things she teaches, whereas they would do much better if they simply had to memorize a bunch of answers. "Memorizing is the easier thing to do, which is why students do it," she says. Sparrow continues to research the impact on learning if instructors remove the expectation of memorization. "Will students better be able to learn focusing on conceptualizing and understanding information rather than simply remembering it?" she asks. "More likely, if a person does not think the information will be available later, they will try to memorize it, often at the expense of understanding the concepts." And if our gadgets were to fail due to a planet-wide electromagnetic pulse tomorrow, we would still be all right. People may rely on their mobile phones to remember friends' and family members' phone numbers, for example, but the part of the brain responsible for such memorization has not been atrophied, she says. "It's not like we've lost the ability to do it." John Suler, a psychology professor at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., and author of the online book The Psychology of Cyberspace, agrees. "I suspect that we're still going to remember information that's important to us, while relying on the Internet to verify what we think might be true or have forgotten, and to provide new information to which we were never exposed," he says. Perhaps the more pressing issue is whether people will develop the ability to scrutinize online information. "If you look long and hard enough, you will find a Web site that validates almost anything you might want to believe, whether it's true or not," Suler says. "It's also clear that cyberspace is filled with differences of opinion, contradictory 'facts,' and the propagation of information from one site to another that gives the illusion of consensual validation."In this respect, the Internet is just like any other memory system—the need for critical thinking does not diminish, regardless of where the information is stored.
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