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Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

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Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#171
post #22
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't just frighteningly ignorant, it ends up having a devastating impact on many young people. One anecdote: I knew a bright young student who loved learning, but hated school. Why? He took algebra and french in 8th grade; he passed algebra and failed french. When he got to 9th grade he was placed in algebra again, and french 2. The school would not budge from its original placement; I don't know the rationale.…

I had a conversation with a math teacher from another school not too long ago. Both of our schools require a minimum of two credits of math to graduate. My school allows students to spread this credit out developing a deeper understanding of basic math, and beginning algebra. His school requires everyone to receive a passing grade in the equivalent of Algebra 2. The lowest passing score at my school is a B-; at his s…

'We have a reputation for being an "easy" school, so I asked him what the value of earning a D- in Algebra 2. His response: "At least they've been exposed to higher math."'

When you say Algebra, I assume you mean what most of us learn in pre-college schools? As opposed to what a mathematics major in college would call "Algebra"? If so, that's hardly even "exposure" to higher math, that's more just a demonstration that there is a such thing other than raw numeric arithmetic.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#172
I tried to make this comment a reply to a separate comment but it errored out. I had a funny thing happen to me in college that ruined my one chance at a 4.0 semester. I had just begun my physics major but had some electives to take as well.

I was taking the introductory microeconomics course. At the end of the semester I had received a B and I was relatively certain that I had achieved better, so I went to the professor's office and asked to see how my grade had been calculated. As he started showing me the scores, I realized that none of them had been mine! In the end he had mixed my scores with another student who had the same last name (a very common name, in the professor's defense). I was very happy at that point because I was really thinking I would receive an A! Sadly, the professor shook his head and said that I would still only get a B.

I was a bit shocked so I asked what the final calculation had given and he said a 0.8994. There were not 10,000 points possible and final grades had to be a two-digit representation of the semester's work, so I was unsure why this kept me from an A. I explained to him that the last digit was not significant since there was no "point" to represent the digit, basically trying to explain significant figures to him. I then stated that since the grade had to be either an 89% or a 90%, surely it was more appropriate to receive a 90%.

He shook his head again and said to me what was probably one of the most infuriating and condescending things I'd ever heard from a moron with PhD. He said that economics as a field was likely much more difficult than my primary coursework and that I should not take it too hard that his course was my lowest grade that semester. Now I do not really buy into the perceived/nearly mythical reputation of difficulty that physics has gained, but I do know that we at least put our dependent variable on the appropriate axis. I am not an exceptionally gifted student, so I never did have another chance to receive a 4.0 semester in my math and physics coursework. I have always held a grudge against that professor.

EDIT: I realize I forgot to mention the part that was really infuriating, as I see that it is really not that frustrating as told. The thing that angered me the most, and the reason I went on about significant figures, is that the professor himself was not against rounding! He said that had I received an 0.8995 I would get the A! His entire grading framework was hinged on a poor understanding of math.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are three [0] "America"s -- North, South, and United States of. Clarification is only required when context is inadequate to distinguish between them. Similarly, "star" can refer to a shape, a celestial body, or a talented/lead performer or athlete. You wouldn't interrupt a conversation about sports to say "stars aren't just guys like LeBron James; Aldebaran is also a star." That would be asinine and obnoxious.…

> "America isn't the US". Depends whom I'm talking to. When I talk to you and others like you, I'll be careful to note that unqualified "America" to you almost always means "the United States". It never meant that to me growing up, nor to a bunch of other people. However, due to the global influence of the US, most of the world considers "America" to be the "US". It's not really about context or anything that could b…

> "It's not really about context ... [it] means different things to different people."

The identities of the speaker and audience are part of context. As you correctly inferred, if I'm speaking, an unqualified "America" probably means "the United States". If you're speaking, it probably means "the largest landmass in the western hemisphere". If we're quoting Obama speaking to the Senate, or Morelos during the revolution, we can infer what they mean by "America".

Accept the meaning the speaker intends, when it's communicated clearly enough that you can infer it. That's how communication works.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying you can understand the concept and still fail to do a sanity check using that knowledge.

It's the difference between understanding in some abstract way and internalizing. Once you've internalized a concept something that is so far out of whack would immediately look wrong. For example: 23894739 x 23894739 = 2 I would expect anyone who has internalized the rules of multiplication to immediately and intuitively reject that. Not that they could tell you what the correct answer is, but know that can't be it…

That doesn't look wrong to me, it just looks like multiplication mod n...

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For [1]: [2] disputes [1]. It states in [2] that it's the top 20% of _high school_ students on page 17. A very different stat. And [1] doesn't say college graduates, it just says graduates. For [2] It's strange when I see these stats. Where I live in the US, 60-80% of high school teachers (depending on school) have advanced degrees (masters or higher). And that's also a weird stat to cite. What percentage of teachers…

IME most school teachers with advanced degrees obtain them from pay-for-grade schools. Those degrees are essential for them to either move up the ranks in their programs or bump up their salary (here in GA a master's degree can be a $10k or more pay raise). It creates a strong financial motivation to get the degree, but they don't actually have time or desire to earn it. Same thing in military service (officer's in m…

I totally agree with everything you say. Here in Texas a Master's degree gets you about $1000 more a year. And that's still enough motivation to get the degree!

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#176
post #3

I teach high school, and a colleague of mine went to an education conference a couple weeks ago. She was sitting at a table with three elementary school teachers. They were talking about how to gauge student progress when the students had taken a 100-question test, and a 50-question test. None of the three teachers realized that you had to scale the test scores before making a comparison between the two tests. These…

> I knew a bright young student who loved learning, but hated school. Of course. Any bright student realizes that school has nothing to do with learning, and furthermore often interferes with it. If schools existed to provide food instead of education, they'd start by lining up all the kids at the beginning of the week and doling out a single crumb to each. And if those crumbs happened to be rat turds instead of crum…

"If schools existed to provide food instead of education, they'd start by lining up all the kids at the beginning of the week and doling out a single crumb to each. And if those crumbs happened to be rat turds instead of crumbs of bread, they'd never notice. Every once in awhile, the school stumbles across the rare child that is starving, absolutely ravenous.

"How long do you think it'd be before that child started to hate school?"

I just wanted to tell you that was the-truth-that-hurts so much it literally made my eyes well up. I just... it's... sadness. Sickness.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#177
post #75
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty sad. Having gone through the Quebec education system and now reflecting over it, I can relate to that student. It seems to me (of course I'm biased but...) that french and history were always seen as more way more important than math classes and that is very unfortunate. I was very lucky to be able to skim through french and math for most of high school. I didn't have an interest in french grammar and…

> french and history were always seen as more way more important than math classes Where I went we could chose advanced math classes in the last 3 secondary years. Most of the students would not take french classes seriously and I think the CEGEP's french standardized exam has a high failure rate.

Oh, the school/program I went to I was forced to take 436 and 536 (which is a good thing). However, just the general atmosphere was history and french is important, math, meh.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#178
post #80

Real story: In Hungary students are rated from 1 to 5, where 5 is the best score and 1 is the worst. During the semester you have multiple tests (both verbal and on paper) each giving you a score between 1 and 5. Your final score is the average of these rounded to an integer. These final scores are the only important measure when you apply to study further, nothing else matters. I had a [5,5,5] and had to take a verb…

Not quite a straight up math error but my high-school english class had a weekly 10 question spelling/definition quiz. Each question was worth "10%" if you got both the spelling and definition correct and "0%" if you got either wrong. I typically got all the definitions correct but very few of the spellings (a major weakness of mine) scored typically 20-30 "%". At the end of the semester these tests were weighted equally with the 2-3 essays and a aggregate reading comprehension score which I did very well on (typical grades of 98%). The result was me scoring "40%" in a class where I was one of the top participants. No amount of explanation from the principal, my family or me could change the teachers mind on the fairness of this.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#179
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if 60% of the 80% condemned to use the public school system are failing to achieve the already lowered standards this is mere nuance? What you have in Quebec is an elite (both english and french speaking) that gifts their children a private bilingual education with actual competition while they actively deny those rights to the rest of the public. Poor monolingual french speakers are actively screwed from birth to…

I'm just saying that we must be careful citing CSDM numbers because they represent a special situation. The CSDM have a lot of first generation immigrants, poor students, students with learning disabilities, etc. The middle class students are in good schools in the suburbs or in private schools. The CSDM in Montreal has such a bad reputation that if you're not accepted in a specialized program (let say, international…

The CSDM is not a special situation at all. You can go to the townships, Lanaudiere, through every Montreal suburb and find the same phenomenon at work.

The root problem is Quebec's monolingual french speakers have been force fed a diet of anti-intellectual nonsense for so long they no longer see the value of education. Hockey is seen as the way out, but failing that the government will always be guilt tripped into paying welfare for them.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several of them even felt cheated for taking our "advanced" math classes which were, in their opinion, far beyond anything they would ever have to teach in high school or CEGEP. Are you saying that people would go to school to be math teachers and say "teach me the math I need to teach my students"? That's nuts. I can't imagine a Spanish teacher who only knows the Spanish in the textbook. Or a woodshop teacher who on…

I can't imagine a Spanish teacher who only knows the Spanish in the textbook. I don't need to imagine her; she taught me for three years in high school.

danielweber ought to damn well be able to imagine it too because I guarantee beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had teachers that worked like that too.

It's easy to miss when we're kids and we still have that presumption that the teachers must know so much more, but what little left of that illusion I had was shattered when I got to college and on a whim started examining the curricula of the teaching degrees. No, they do not necessarily know more than they are teaching. They may. They can. They may even know a lot more because they really love it. But there are plenty who do not.

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