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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

#211

Post by mililani »

geophile wrote: post #192

I met some education majors in the 70s, when I was in college and grad school, (at McGill, coincidentally). It was clear, even then, that many of them were aiming to become grade school teachers because they could not do math beyond the grade school level . My encounters with my kids' teachers over the years have only reinforced that impression. Two examples: 1) A 4th grade teacher who gave assignments in which prese…

I think your point 2) is unjustifiably harsh. It may have been misinterpreted. I think it's an honest mistake.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#212

Post by danans »

woud420 wrote: post #52
japhyr wrote: 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…

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…

It's a bit sad IMO that in our current education culture, we portray the study of math and science as being somehow opposed to the study of history and culture.

I find the them inextricably linked. I'll never forget the human stories of mathematical discoveries from Erastosthenes to Newton, up to the present. And rigorous quantitative and symbolic reasoning is indispensable when discussing socio-cultural phenomena at all scales.

I wish math and science were taught with more historical narrative than they are, and likewise, that the humanities were taught with more mathematical/scientific rigor than they are.

I also think it would open up both to people who would otherwise have a hard time grasping them.

EDIT: added conclusion

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#213

Post by tlear »

danielweber wrote: post #139
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a surprising number of people simply can't math. This seems incredible if you're one of the people who can math. But really, I've known otherwise bright people whose brains fall apart at the first hint of abstraction. Basic arithmetic is fine, but you can forget about trying to teach them anything more complicated. Simple equations? Trig? Basic stats? They just can't do them, no matter how many times you repe…

There are two theses I have, not sure which is right: 1. Those people biologically can't math. (Alternatively, we are the mutants who can math.) 2. Culture has given them math anxiety, which causes panic when being asked to do math.

I think it just that Math requires abstraction and abstraction is genuinely hard. Because it is hard and highly desired skill very few teachers are good at it

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#214

Post by Crito »

crusso wrote: post #170
Crito wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What does take control even mean? Public school teachers have no control." If they already had control, then they wouldn't need to take it, would they?

Good example of out of context quoting of even a short post. He said it's not the teachers' job to have the type of control that the original poster was saying that teachers should seize.

He responded to a proposal that it should be with, depending on how you interpret it:

1) An assertion that it is not currently the case. (Probably true, but completely missing the point of a proposal)

2) An unsupported assertion that it should not be the case. (An unsupported opinion in response to a thought out opinion isn't adding much to the conversation. He may as well simply respond "No, your opinion is wrong." A better comment would explain why he has that opinion.)

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#215

Post by maxerickson »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #127
danielweber wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was screaming about how I hadn't learned anything in math between grade 4 and 8. Nothing. Think about that. We did fraction math for four and a half years I ended up being taught the same thing many times in math classes, but I noticed that my classmates -- even in honors classes -- had completely forgotten the last time we had learned this. They insisted they had never seen it before. The teachers had been through…

I think a surprising number of people simply can't math. This seems incredible if you're one of the people who can math. But really, I've known otherwise bright people whose brains fall apart at the first hint of abstraction. Basic arithmetic is fine, but you can forget about trying to teach them anything more complicated. Simple equations? Trig? Basic stats? They just can't do them, no matter how many times you repe…

There's an awful lot of people who think they are bad at math but they never really tried it because they find arithmetic difficult/tiresome/whatever.

Ask them how long it will take to drive somewhere, no problem, they can calculate it.

Ask them to solve an algebra equation with 1 variable? No way, they don't know how to do that.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#216

Post by Dylan16807 »

rogerbinns wrote: post #142
sly010 wrote: 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…

In my first year of university we had to do a maths module. My final score was 120%. Imagine just many different broken and non-mathematical things have to go into that!

Can you be more specific? Curving and extra credit can go over 100, and extra credit can be common in a mandatory intro module.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#217

Post by omegaham »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #35

This is alarming but not particularly surprising to me, if the culture of education is similar between the US and Canada. Judging by this piece and one I read hear a few days back [1], there may be more similarities than I'd thought. Ed school for far too many is a compelling choice for people who want a relatively easy college degree. I don't want to diss the countless teachers who choose that route out of genuine p…

One thing that I've become a firm believer in is that teaching isn't the problem; administration is. A good administrator or group of administrators will make the entire school into a team that can excel. They set a clear vision for what teachers need to know and do. They set clear standards for discipline, which are practiced in a fair, evenhanded, rational fashion. They uphold high standards and remove the non-hackers who can't do the job. They respond quickly to concerns and show that they legitimately care.

Incidentally, one of the biggest reasons why private schools do so much better is that their administrations tend to be better. When a kid is acting up in class, he gets punished. When a teacher sucks, he gets fired. When concerns come up, they are addressed quickly and promptly. These things are so important that teachers willingly and happily take a pay cut just so that they can be in this environment.

In contrast, a large number of public schools have horrifyingly incompetent administrators. The school then becomes a muddled mess where individual sparks are snuffed out by the chaos. Who would teach in such a place?

One of my favorite models of people's performance is the "10-80-10" distribution. 10% are heroes, who will do an amazing job no matter how bad things get. 10% are shitbags, to be extirpated with prejudice. The remaining 80% will go with the flow. If your school is awesome, they'll approach the heroes. If it's garbage, they'll approach the shitbags. Administration is what decides where the 80% will go.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#218

Post by maxerickson »

danielweber wrote: post #65
3pt14159 wrote: post #33

McGill is not a great university, but it isn't poor either. It doesn't have the pride that Waterloo (our MIT) or Toronto (our... Columbia? Dartmouth? We don't have a Harvard or Yale) has, but it's solidly mid-tier. And this does not surprise me one bit. I've met engineers failing out during first year at Waterloo that didn't know the second law of thermodynamics ("why don't we put wind turbines on top of electric car…

I was screaming about how I hadn't learned anything in math between grade 4 and 8. Nothing. Think about that. We did fraction math for four and a half years I ended up being taught the same thing many times in math classes, but I noticed that my classmates -- even in honors classes -- had completely forgotten the last time we had learned this. They insisted they had never seen it before. The teachers had been through…

I think for a lot of people the problem is that they don't know there is a map (a lot of mathematics fits together quite nicely).

I also think that a lot of instruction is pushed at people that are missing some fundamental bit or another, so even though the concept is close within their reach, it doesn't end up sinking in.

It's another example of how we humans arrange things so that the winners keep on winning (that is, people who are caught up end up actually learning the new stuff, people who are behind waste the time).

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#219

Post by Jtsummers »

hdctambien wrote: post #175
Jtsummers wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Hmm, I had to look it up once you said your number for TX. I don't think it's as big a raise here in GA at the state level as I was recalling. For a particular county I found, Houston County, the difference is $400/month for a teacher with 10 years of experience with a Master's versus a Bachelor's. A PhD offers almost $1k more than the master's alone. So by the time most teachers have it done they get around a $4k-5k pay raise (the difference increases with each year of experience).

A 20-year teacher with a PhD is making around $75k/year vs $55k for a teacher with only a bachelor's. If they're the sole earner for a household that's a strong incentive to finish up the degree and on the cheap/ease at a degree mill. Even if they're not, that extra $20k (or around $10-12k extra take home) is still more money that can be dumped into any retirement accounts or paying off the house before they retire (if they're financially savvy).

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#220

Post by crucini »

japhyr wrote: post #199
tshaddox wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a slightly subtler but similar story. I had a math teacher in high school who would curve her test scores to the lowest top score from any one class. In other words, if she taught three identical 10th grade Trig classes in a semester, for each test she would take the three top scores (one from each class), and curve the test to the lowest of those three scores. It's a reasonable enough idea, I suppose, since…

People often underestimate the bitterness that these experiences create in smart people. It's not a petty thing, either - it's life changing in many situations. We need smart people to take control of schools.

The road of life is bumpy. I would not seek to smooth out the few remaining bumps in school. We are already in danger of creating fragile people who shatter at the first bump.

All this, even if the teacher's idea were quite wrong - but it's not. By "clipping" the score, the teacher created a hybrid between curved and uncurved grades. If curved and uncurved are acceptable, why not the hybrid?

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