Primary school maths is sufficient for most day-to-day activities for most people

[CraigD]

It takes english teacher 30m-1 hour or more to mark an English assignment in detail.

It takes math teachers 4 minutes; then they are off to the pub.

The pub tradition is a vital part of the math discipline! (We don’t precisely have pubs in the US, but have a variety of approximate equivalents) And, personally, I wouldn’t trust an English teacher who doesn’t frequent one, either. :naughty:

 

Seriously, as someone who’s taught Math and physical science (a college, not HS class, but a “remedial” one not much more advanced than 9th grade level), and socialized with several teachers of English and other humanities, I can attest that, though Math and phys sci exams may be easier to score than English papers, I spent more of my office hours helping my students than my non-math-teaching colleagues – and such work is more stressful…

 

… which may account somewhat for the pub tradition. :confused:

[Michaelangelica]

I spent more of my office hours helping my students than my non-math-teaching colleagues – and such work is more stressful…

 

… which may account somewhat for the pub tradition. :hihi:

Marking in detail is helping; then often a discussion is necessary. Meanwhile the math teachers are discussing school politics and organising an easier life for themselves.

High school English teachers would have little time to themselves if doing their job properly

 

On a world scale, looking at developing countries

City Mayors: World Education

still more than 100 million children who are not receiving regular education and many drop out before grade 5 of primary school or graduate without mastering even a minimum set of cognitive skills. In one-third of countries, for example, less than 75 per cent of students reach grade 5.

. . .

the Report, “found that some primary school mathematics teachers possessed only basic numeracy and actually scored lower than students on the same tests.”

[freeztar]

Marking in detail is helping; then often a discussion is necessary. Meanwhile the math teachers are discussing school politics and organising an easier life for themselves.

High school English teachers would have little time to themselves if doing their job properly

 

The same argument can be made for math teachers.

An X or check mark is not valid scoring for any subject imho.

 

Several math teachers that I have had would go through my work and point out where my errors in calculation have led to my wrong answer. This is infinitely more helpful than just a "wrong". It would also probably save any teacher from having to spend quite as much time with students outside of class.

[Monomer]

the Report, “found that some primary school mathematics teachers possessed only basic numeracy and actually scored lower than students on the same tests.”

 

The thing with primary school teachers is that they have just a basic knowledge of the subjects they need to teach. Each primary school class has one teacher who teaches them maths, geography, history, science...etc. They don't have a different teacher for each subject, as high school students do, because apparently it's too much of a disruption to the kids. But perhaps it's worth adopting a high school model where teachers instruct the kids in subjects they have specialised in.

 

When I was in high school, in years 9 and 11 I had my PE teachers as my maths teacher (because they were short on teachers), and I didn't particularly enjoy the subject. I was never a great maths student, and those years I certainly didn't shine in that subject. But in year 12 I had an actual maths teacher and he was fantastic. He had a real gift for teaching, and was able to explain the concepts in a way that I understood and I excelled in the subject and was top of the class. He also went through my work, and like freeztar's teachers, pointed out where I had gone wrong.

 

So my point is that I think it's really important to have properly qualified teachers otherwise the students will lose interest, and perhaps they have a knack for maths that has yet to be unleased. I only persevered with maths because I needed it to get into uni, but most people dropped the subject as soon as they could.

[Michaelangelica]

So my point is that I think it's really important to have properly qualified teachers otherwise the students will lose interest, and perhaps they have a knack for maths that has yet to be unleased. I only persevered with maths because I needed it to get into uni, but most people dropped the subject as soon as they could.

Yes, i agree , although it does not matter much as it is an irelevant subject

But one day when we were being presented with yet another algebraic formula, it came to me that in my daily life it was of no practical use, and from then on I paid absolutely no attention.

Ockham's Razor - 15/04/01: Maths Is Boring

Part of the problem is that Australia has a general labour market that rewards highly able maths, science and technology graduates and a teaching labour market that has failed to respond.

 

The initial deterrent of having to complete a further year of study in order to qualify to teach is also significant. On top of this, there are widespread concerns about the quality of pre-service teacher education courses.

 

ASPA has described pre-service teacher education as "extremely poor" and reviews of teacher training have identified the need for a greater emphasis on practical classroom experience.

Executive highlights

Mathematical sciences are suffering a “triple whammy” - at school, undergraduate and university department levels. In schools, there is a shortage of suitably-trained mathematics teachers and the number of people entering the profession is far smaller than required to maintain even our current situation. In most states, there has been a flight of students away from high level mathematics subjects at senior levels of schools. The reasons for this include poor career advice, changes in university entry requirements and lack of qualified mathematics teachers.

 

At undergraduate level, the number of students majoring in mathematics and statistics has also been declining. This is a complex issue, intertwined with the degradation of university mathematics and statistics departments. Over the past ten years, the Australian Mathematical Society estimates there has been a 25 per cent reduction in teaching positions in mathematics and statistics around Australia. The review is indicating this may be an underestimate. Moreover, all but a handful of departments are currently in financial deficit and facing further cuts.

The crisis in maths in Australia - On Line Opinion - 16/5/2006

 

Teaching of Mathematics in Schools

 

 

Summary:

 

There is a lack of adequately trained mathematics teachers in our schools.

 

Transcript:

 

 

Robyn Williams: I was at a mathematics conference last year when the question was asked: How many such teachers would graduate in the year 2000 in New South Wales? The answer I was given was 17, hardly the basis for some great new age of numeracy to underpin the Knowledge Nation. So why does this matter?

 

Here’s David Blest, Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Tasmania in Launceston. He presents a picture of such skills in our ever-changing new century.

 

David Blest: There is an old saying: ‘Those who can, do; those that can’t, teach.’ There are also some rather unkind extensions to the saying, such as:

 

Those who can’t teach, teach teachers;

 

Those who can’t teach teachers do educational research; and

 

Those who can’t do educational research become administrators.

 

I’m not even sure whether I was, in some cynical moment, the originator of any of these extensions, and I certainly don’t subscribe to any of these, but one thing they do point up is the immense gap which applies between the workface and the administrator. This is especially true in the area of mathematics and its uses and the provision of adequate mathematics teaching in our schools.

 

This is one of those vicious circle stories, so it’s difficult to know where to start. Perhaps the workface, my workface in a University, teaching maths. There seems to be little doubt that the capabilities of students in mathematics from across a wide number of disciplines are not what they were, say 20 years ago. Not another of those old fogies for whom the past was another and rather better country, do I hear you say? Well I hope not. The evidence is everywhere: anecdotal and factual, in Australia, in the UK, in the States, and to my surprise in a range of countries in Europe. The only bright spot seems to be in South East Asia. For some examples: I can look at the syllabuses indicating the range of mathematics required for degrees and diplomas now and in the past, and see our diminished requirements. I can look at an exam paper which I set 20 years ago for the same degree, and what I set now. The same comment applies. I can assess the capabilities of incoming students and see that I can expect less, much less.

. . .

By the time a student gets to grades Nine and Ten, where he and she may be lucky enough to get a teacher with a substantial maths background, it’s too late, the damage is done.

. . .

In summary so far, there are fewer and fewer people with strong mathematics backgrounds taking up the profession of teaching and the standard of mathematics teaching is falling. As a result, fewer and fewer students are being enthused about the subject and being encouraged to think about mathematics as a possible career opportunity.

Ockham's Razor - 29/10/00: Teaching of Mathematics in Schools

[LaurieAG]

This has largely been investigated from the perspective of psychology, with the use of psychometric tests, particularly the MARS (Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale). The focus of this social-constructionist study is on the interactions that construct both emotion and learning in a social setting.

 

That's very interesting Michaelangelica,

 

I was sick at home for 2 weeks when my high school Maths 1 class started studying calculus. I came back to school and received a real shock because I had never had any problems with school maths before and this new maths was totally different. Talk about being anxious. Luckily for me it just 'clicked' within the next 24 hours and I never suffered any anxiety with maths exams at school after that.

 

So after being involuntarily held behind my school peers by sickness, I suffered a spike in anxiety which served to resolve my problems forthwith.

 

It just leads me to wonder if deliberately increased anxiety can be an integral part of a learning process that can then be actively used to reduce anxiety in the future application of what was learned?

[teacherteacher]

Moderation note: Because this post wasn’t relevant to the original thread’s topic, but a topic of its own, it and responses to it have been moved to their own thread, 13118.

 

Please post any responses to this post in this new thread

 

In multiple choice tests, three-four answers are provided. How about when voting? If six choices are provided on a ballot, for only 115 total voters, isn't that providing invalid results? In other words, with so many choices (6), an unfair advantage may be given to a particular group? Help! I need this answered by tomorrow morning! $100,000 is riding on this for our school district! Thanks to anyone with info!! I'll even accept statistical theories for this one! :shrug:

[Michaelangelica]

[Michaelangelica]

Not a great programme but it dosn't talk about anything other than primary maths.

Arithmetic for adults

 

Listen Now - 19102008 |Download Audio - 19102008

 

According to an international survey 70% of the Australian adult population doesn't adequately understand how numbers work.

Retired psychologist Valerie Yule discusses how simple arithmetic helps with everyday tasks and understanding the world around us.

Ockham's Razor - 19 October 2008 - Arithmetic for adults

Despite this, Ozzies still know who's "shout" it is.

Some highlights:-

World population is increasing from 6-billion to 9-billion by 2050.

Can we imagine life with that number?

Many of us were alive in 1959 when it was a third of that.

Sums with missing figures.

 

Our present arithmetic of production calculates the costs only of Capital and Labor, assuming resources are infinite. But if finite resources are costed in as the future cost that the next generation must pay, the necessity for unstoppable growth looks unprofitable.

It is a curious sidelight that in my collection of stories told by children, boys' most common adjective by far is BIG and girls' most common adjective is LITTLE.

'Here's to Pure Maths and may it never be of any use to anybody'.

[Jay-qu]

'Here's to Pure Maths and may it never be of any use to anybody'.

 

Well its no longer pure if anyone finds an application for it :)

[Michaelangelica]

Just watched this facinating show on maths.

Suprisng there is not a thread about it on Hypography.

How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer

How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer We've all heard of 'six degrees of separation', the idea that everyone in the world can be connected in just a few steps. But what if those steps don't just relate to people but also to viruses, neurons, proteins and even to fashion trends? What if this 'six degrees of separation' allowed us an insight into something at the core of Nature?

 

We used to think the way in which web pages, power grids and people tied together was more or less random. But recently two young physicists independently discovered that fundamental laws govern networks. It's a discovery that may prove as important as Newton's observations of gravity or Darwin's theory of evolution.

 

How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer brings us a new view of the world, as we unfold the science behind the popular trivia game 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon'. Based on the idea that anyone on the planet can be connected in just a few steps of association, 'six-degrees of separation' was supposedly an urban myth. Through this documentary we discover it's at the heart of a major scientific breakthrough.

 

The explosion in the new science of networks started with an Australian PhD student Duncan Watts while studying, of all things, crickets, and the mechanism that allows them to chirp in unison. He investigated networks as varied as the actors of Hollywood, the neural pathways of the brain and the US power grid and discovered that they are all 'small worlds' where every actor, neuron, cricket and transformer is only a few 'handshakes' away.

 

Meanwhile a Hungarian physicist, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi coincidentally mapped the World Wide Web and found an underlying law that shapes small-world structures. Whether natural or man-made, vast diverse networks share a common blueprint, a structure that describes their strengths and weaknesses. In the near future network science will fundamentally change how we control epidemics; power failures; fight wars; save endangered species; prevent crime and disease.

 

PRODUCTION DETAILS:

An Essential Media and Entertainment Production in association with ABC TV. Executive Producer: Chris Hilton. Director: Annamaria Talas, Producer: Simon Nasht, Chris Hilton & Aline Jaques

 

 

Duration (mins) 60

Date of broadcast 28/10/2008

Channel ABC1

Price: AUD38.45

including GST

EnhanceTV :: Educational TV :: Science & Technology :: How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer

[freeztar]

That's interesting M. I looked up Watts, mentioned in the quote, and found this very interesting article related to the work that he and others are doing.

 

"I think the small-world phenomenon is ubiquitous," says mathematical biologist Simon A. Levin of Princeton University. The work of Watts and Strogatz provides a potentially powerful framework for tackling such issues as the spread of disease, the diffusion of goods and services, and the transmission of information, he notes, adding that it also has important implications for environmental management.

 

Networks pervade biology and society. "The brain is a network of neurons," Watts says. "Organizations are networks of people. The global economy is a network of national economies, which are themselves networks of markets, which are themselves networks of interacting producers and consumers."

 

In the past, researchers found it convenient to model these systems as either regular or random networks. Mathematicians represent a network with what they call a graph, which consists of a collection of points, or vertices, and a set of lines, or edges, joining pairs of points. The points stand for members and the lines reflect the members' connections...

Close connections: it's a small world of crickets, nerve cells, computers, and people | Science News | Find Articles at BNET

[Michaelangelica]

Yes fascinating stuff

you would think the Hypography math geeks would be discussing this; not someone who barely knows how to multiply,add and divide.

A simple model to explain this

Networks pervade biology and society. "The brain is a network of neurons," Watts says. "Organizations are networks of people. The global economy is a network of national economies, which are themselves networks of markets, which are themselves networks of interacting producers and consumers."

is amazing.

[Michaelangelica]

Perhaps another exception to the rule that basic sums is enough. Although you could ask a mathematician &/or physicist to make up the problems for you?

 

xkcd - A Webcomic - Nerd Sniping

[Michaelangelica]

I think I am going to turn this into a subvesive maths thread

LOLOLO he he arh arh arh

 

 

Terence Tao

Mathematician, University of California Los Angeles

 

Many of the great mathematicians of our era probably scored a perfect 800 on the math section of their SATs. Terence Tao squeaked by with a 760—when he was 8 years old.

 

A quarter century later, Tao, now 33, is one of the most prolific and esteemed mathematicians in the nation. In 1999 he became UCLA’s youngest professor at age 24 and later won the 2006 Fields Medal, considered the Nobel Prize of math. In a discipline where one can spend a lifetime working on a single problem, Tao has made major contributions in a number of categories ranging from nonlinear equations to number theory—which explains why colleagues continually seek his guidance.

 

“In every generation of mathematicians, there are a few at the very top,” says Charles Fefferman of Princeton University, a mathematical giant in his own right. “He belongs in that group.”

Joseph Teran

Mathematician, UCLA

 

Imagine knowing, before you go under the knife, not only that your surgeon has performed the procedure hundreds of times before but that he has practiced on a replica of you. Joseph Teran, 31, is helping make this scenario a reality, using mathematical modeling to simulate surgeries involving a patients’ tendons, muscles, fat, and skin. “We have governing mathematical equations for how those tissues operate,” Teran says. The first step is to turn those equations into a standard digital human that can react, in real time, to a surgeon’s virtual actions.

 

Then the idea is to allow doctors to customize this tool. In the future, medical imaging such as CT and MRI could reveal that one patient, for instance, has tendons that are stiffer than average, allowing the doctor to adjust the “digital double” [pdf] accordingly. “You want it to be as close to the real experience as possible,” Teran says. —E. A.

 

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