Re: Maths education status report


Mike Yarwood wrote:
"Rune Allnor" <allnor@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1141721823.524672.306340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jerry Avins wrote:
Rune Allnor wrote:
Mike Yarwood wrote:

"Rune Allnor" <allnor@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1141383075.762503.152780@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi all.

Yesterday there was a story circulating in the National press about the

level of the maths education amongst students. The story is here (in
Norwegian, haven't found an English summary):

http://forbruker.no/jobbogstudier/studier/article1238172.ece

The headline translates to "Students can't do kid's maths". A survey
amongst 7215 freshman students (18-20-year olds) whose field of study
*require* maths, have shown that the students on average solve less
than
50% of problems taken from the "compulsary school" (15-16 years olds)
curriculum. On NTNU -- The Norwegian University of Science and
Technology -- the freshmen have three years of maths in addition to
the "compulsary school." Nevertheless, in this survey, the NTNU
students
on average missed on 40% of the exercises.

We have some interesting times ahead.

Yeah - but it's hardly a big surprise is it? Why don't they compare the
results with a similar age-range group who have also passed their school
curriculum maths exams but are now working in areas where they use even
less
of the curriculum maths and are just as uninterested in the outcome of
these pointless tests?


At least what the NTNU is concerned, these tests are not pointless
and a student who has no interest in maths should not be there.
We are approaching a situation where, if these people were carpenters,
they have seen a hammer demonstrated by a teacher, and some may
have heard about a saw. Hardly the people one would like to be working
on one's house, is it?

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/john_gatto.html might be pertinent.

Interesting.

In ither posts, Finland was mentioned as consistently topping the
ranks over school performance. Leaving aside the question whether
such tests and rankings are relevant, there are some peculiarities
with the Finnish system.

At the face of it, Finland and Norway are about the same size.
Before the North Sea oil bonanza of the 60s, the two countries had
roughly the same economy: Some basic raw materials (fish, timber)
for export, and some agriculture.

The educational systems are statistically similar. The size and
distributions of schools are similar, the classes are of similar size,
the number of pupils per teacher about the same, the per capita
budgets about the same. And still this vast difference in performance
of the students.

Why?

For the last 20 or so years, the students to entered the Norweguian
teacher's college (the college to educate future teachers) consistently

were from the bottom segment of hihgh school graduates. "If your grades
aren't good enough to anything else, you can always become a teacher."
Norwegian teachers are expected to teach all and evertything.

In Finland, teachers are university graduates with specilaizations
in the subjects they teach.

In Norway, such comments are highly frowned upon. The then prime
minister Brundtland launched a logan in 1992 (timed with respect
to the 1994 olympics) "Det er typisk norsk å være god." I can't
translate
it as a catchphrase, but the gist is that "Norwegians excel in
everything",
based on citizenship rather than anything else. With this sort of
"official" attitude, why would anyone care about investing lots of
sweat and hard work in anything?

What takes centuries to build, takes merely years to destroy.

Less than that really ( what happened to those >> thingies? - I can usually
see them but they've gone ) it's quite astonishing how fast a working system
can be 'reformed' to be so much less useful.
If people actually start to believe that you can shove a broad maths
curriculum at kids , expect them to work hard perfecting the art of
answering questions on every part of that curriculum, in a specific way in a
limited time so that they do well in their exams and then to retain that
skill when they have gone on to work at a different set of problems,
related to only a small subset of the skills they have already demonstrated
some temporary command of and to be able to drag it all out again 'just like
that', then they are moving into a fantasy world.

What is the alternative? In times gone by, professionals (they were
called
"craftsmen" in those days) formed guilds that were supposed to take
care
of the proffesional intergrity by taking up apprentices and teaching
them
more or less from person to person. That system is still in place, but
only
on the graduate level. For the masses, the class system is the one
laternative that works. It is not perfect, some might say it isn't even
good,
but it works, parts of the time. At least in some instances.

I expect that the NTNU are not so arrogant that they believe that a
facility with every single one of the things taught in school curriculum
maths is an utter necessity for people in tertiary education in a field
where some mathematical aptitude is an advantage, why would they think the
tests are pointless?

No one at NTNU think the tests are pointless. The tests demonstrate
a trend that has been measured for some 20 years, that show a
consistent
deterioration of the maths skills. Again, the tests may not be good,
let alone perfct, but they are what is available.

Presumably they now have loads of feedback on just how
much of the school curriiculum is in daily use in each of the fields that
participating students study, if the NTNU take into account the fact that
most of these students don't need to remember all of the stuff that they
use - they have the time to look it up if they need to, then they may
eventually be able to make some tentative recommendations which, again
eventually, may materially improve how school maths is taught.

I look up the SVD, the various intergration and differentiation
formulas
and so on, I hardly ever need them. I compute percentages and fractions

(at least gross guesstimates) only reluctantly with pen and paper, I
prefer to do that in my head if I can. The calculator or the computer
is only used when accurate numbers are needed.

But I'm the mad scientist.

I would settle for students being able to do basic percentages and
fractions with pen and paper, and otherwise know how to do things.
I used to teach a class where basic PDEs and Fourier analysis
were required pre-requisites. It is no fun at all to start from scratch

a level or two below where you are supposed to be.

The
students taking part in these tests must certainly feel that it was a waste
of time if the only use is for the national news to shout about how much
they've forgotten of the vitally important skill-set that some committee
forced onto them some years before.

I don't understand what you mean. I some times hear from students that
they "only want to learn what is relevant to them". My reaction to that

is that "you are wasting your time in class if you know what is
relevant."
Who knew 300 years ago that Fermat's first theorem should be an
essential part of telecommunication coding theory?

For my own part, knowledge from one field often acts as a stimulus for
ideas or considerations in other fields.

But again, I'm the mad scientist.

Rune

.

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