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andrewduckerThis annoys me significantly.
A-level maths was apparently the hardest of the A levels, and there was too much information for the amount of teaching time they had, so they cut it back somewhat.
Which is fine.
What annoys me is that they acknowledge the problem (differing levels of ability, limited teaching time, the need to provide an indication to business/university of what level of ability people have) and then come to a conclusion that's clearly yet another bodge.
The answer, as far as I can see, is clear - it's just not politically easy. It's to break the subject down into much smaller pieces, and then rather than saying "Pure Maths: B" have a report which tells you exactly what a student does and doesn't understand. Do they understand basic geometry? Do they understand differentiation? Do they understand integration? Maths _isn't like_ English - you either understand the concepts and can work with them, or you don't. I mean, sure, you might be slower than someone else, so there might be scope for a two grade system of "Understands" and "Is a genius at", but that should show up really well just by seeing whether a student has understood a lot of 'chunks' or just a few.
So what I'd want is a series of small modules, each one of which being a step forward on a variety of different branches of the tree of mathematics. Which gives them clear guidance on their progress, and makes it obvious to others what exactly they can and can't do.
A-level maths was apparently the hardest of the A levels, and there was too much information for the amount of teaching time they had, so they cut it back somewhat.
Which is fine.
What annoys me is that they acknowledge the problem (differing levels of ability, limited teaching time, the need to provide an indication to business/university of what level of ability people have) and then come to a conclusion that's clearly yet another bodge.
The answer, as far as I can see, is clear - it's just not politically easy. It's to break the subject down into much smaller pieces, and then rather than saying "Pure Maths: B" have a report which tells you exactly what a student does and doesn't understand. Do they understand basic geometry? Do they understand differentiation? Do they understand integration? Maths _isn't like_ English - you either understand the concepts and can work with them, or you don't. I mean, sure, you might be slower than someone else, so there might be scope for a two grade system of "Understands" and "Is a genius at", but that should show up really well just by seeing whether a student has understood a lot of 'chunks' or just a few.
So what I'd want is a series of small modules, each one of which being a step forward on a variety of different branches of the tree of mathematics. Which gives them clear guidance on their progress, and makes it obvious to others what exactly they can and can't do.
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Just call me "old git"
Date: 2006-02-11 11:47 am (UTC)