Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average • Hacker News Board

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#251

Post by jdmichal » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 10:24 PM UTC

Negitivefrags wrote: post #222

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…

Here is a story of something that happened to a friend of mine. This is from New Zealand. He was taking 7th form Latin. Latin has enough students in the 3rd form but by the time you get to 7th form (The final year before university) there were only 20 or so students in the entire country taking the course. He was taking the course by correspondence because the school obviously wouldn't provide a teacher for a single…

Curving only makes sense when there's a normal distribution. Sounds like, at that point, the students were no longer in a normal distribution and therefore curving failed.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#252

Post by germinalphrase » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 10:28 PM UTC

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…

Thank you for this perspective. As a public school teacher who did leave a higher paying, more glamorous career to work with youth these threads can swing between white knuckles and tears.

We've got a lot of talent inside and outside the education space - but we're not creating a system that will retain (or home grow) that talent. I'm hopeful we will start to see better tools to provide strong resources and modeling to young teachers + valuable feedback/fresh ideas to veterans. We can't just churn through the smart, young ones two-years-at-a-time and squeeze out those with deep experience.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#253

Post by jdmichal » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 10:35 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #212

woud420 wrote: 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…

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…

I think it's the idea that math and science are the same regardless of their history. You can learn the history of them, but the answers don't change when you do. On the other hand, your answers about historic and cultural questions can change drastically depending on how informed you are.

Also, the level of rote memorization required vs. logic and analytic thinking. You think math and science could be improved via learning their history; I think history and culture can be improved by learning more about the reasoning behind individual things. Less focus on when and what and where; more focus on why and causes.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#254

Post by ezy » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 10:38 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #249

ezy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding completely ignorant, what's wrong with what she did? In most classes I've been a part of, your total score was based on a weighted average of scores on particular tasks. The normalization here is a typical test curve -- a normalization that attempts to compensate for measurement error in one particular test, independent of the total class score. That's why she referred to "extra credit".

This was explicitly not the case in this class. A test curved to 85 points was worth less than another test curved to 90 points. And honestly, even if each test was normalized to 100 points after the curve, I would still object (on ethical grounds, not mathematical) to not being given >100% when the test is curved to below my score.

Ah, I didn't catch that. That's... annoying.

Perhaps you might object mathematically too. I think of a curve as fitting the test scores to a specific distribution as a corrective to testing error. It's not the fitting that's the issue, it's how justified the target distribution is. If you truncate it, you have to justify doing that somehow (all prior test results had that distribution?). Of course, if the sample distribution squashes it enough, you might end up clustered at 100% anyway, but...

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#255

Post by grownseed » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #238

grownseed wrote: post #145

This is abysmal and unfortunately, it is far more widespread than people like to believe, particularly in supposedly advanced countries. I've worked with programmers who could not do proportions, compounded with designers, managers etc. who were in the same boat, I'd hear conversations along the lines of: "This is terrible, X is 3/4 of Y!" "I don't think you got it right, I got 75%, which isn't that bad" The conversa…

While I agree with you in general, HN comments should (and do) have lower standards for grammar, spelling, and logical reasoning. If I spent as much time on my HN comments as I do on research papers I probably wouldn't get more than one comment per month.

I completely agree with your sentiment and I'm definitely not asking for research paper quality in comments (be it HN or other places), but I do think getting the basics right goes a long way towards better comprehension and credibility.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#256

Post by franklinho » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

If true, this is horrifying. I went to McGill and the Education students didn't seem this incompetent.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#257

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 12:01 AM UTC

crucini wrote: post #220

japhyr wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Smoothing out bumps or making it "easy" and worrying about fragile stuff is totally unrelated to acting intelligent.

In early grades, I had amazing teachers. Plus they had "enrichment" where they pulled us out of less-useful classes, gave us a lab and a dedicated teacher who just said "hey, what are you interested in?" I excelled there.

After moving a few times, I unofficially dropped out of school in 7th grade (12 years old), after grilling my teacher and realizing she didn't really have a clue. Other teachers were worse.[1]

I attended for a few more years (partially coerced by illegal police force[1]), then at 15 dropped out for good by leaving the country.

Things turned out OK for me. But I lost a LOT by not getting a real education, not having a chance at college. Just the lack of maths alone takes a lot of effort to rectify. Yes, it's still my fault, but the system shouldn't be encouraging 12-15 year olds to make such mistakes.

Kids will have enough bumps with bullying and school life in general. Adding idiocy bumps that make a mockery of education and intelligence just make kids cynical and tune out.

(It also makes such graduates more OK with the idea of corruption, stupid bureaucracy, mediocrity, etc. - a shrug and a "that's how things work". Such things should be vigorously fought, not beaten into children.)

1: One "science" teacher: "Carbon-14 dating is a lie told by scientists that hate god."

2: Somehow there was enough of a "problem" to haul me in front of a judge who pre-emptively revoked my drivers licenses for 3 years. I told him I'd just get a pilot's license instead and enrolled in flight school the next month. I also found it hilarious how people in court used the term "infinite wisdom" when referring to the judge. Illegal part was that I am not a U.S. person so they didn't have jurisdiction for enforcing mandatory schooling any more than they'd have on any other B-2 visa'd tourist.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#258

Post by solarmist » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 12:05 AM UTC

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…

TL;DR I am currently taking an adult who "can't math" through Khan Academy from K-2nd on up and she's "mathing" wonderfully now that we're comprehensively filling in the understanding gaps. Too bad she still doesn't like it. :P

I know someone in that class of people that "can't math". Initially I tutored her in algebra and she did alright when we were working together, but as soon as I turned her loose or she went in to take a test she couldn't remember or apply the techniques. She was allowed to go into Pre-calculus (she wants to be a Chem Major). But without extensive help on each section she would fail spectacularly. And after a while it became obvious why. She could think logically and when explained clearly or relating to other concepts she's recently learned it all made sense, but she had so many deficiencies in basic math that nothing past that would really stick. As an example I taught her the formula for computing the area of a square multiple times, but she would swear this was the first time each time because there was no foundation to hang that new knowledge on.

Now I but I have her working through Khan Academy from the ground up (K-2nd) and now that she's up to 5th grade and I've explained how basic concepts relate together, like multiplication and area or fractions and division she's actually starting to "get it".

She just lost the thread of "mathing" around 3rd grade and never found it again. Now that she can go through it at her pace and has someone that can patiently explain it from multiple angles it makes sense and she's doing things on her own that I was afraid she's never "get".

That said without Khan academy and a detailed list of sub-topics in math (45 individual skills for dealing with fractions for example) I'd have never been able to cover all the small things that add up to a detailed understanding of arithmetic. I'd have covered fractions from maybe a handful of angles and called it good knowing that it wasn't enough practice without having an answer for how to practice more without stupid rote repetition of the same kinds of problem.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#259

Post by cma » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 12:27 AM UTC

sgk284 wrote: post #240

baddox wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify what you mean? How does a curve cause a 95% to get scaled down to a 43% failing grade?

If you have 10 people who score: 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98% 99%, 100% and scale the grades from 0-100, those students' curved grades are: 0%, 11%, 22%, 33%, 44%, 55%, 66%, 77%, 88%, 100% In other words, they turn the students' grades into their ranked percentile within their cohort. It's an absolutely brain-dead decision.

Stack ranking does the same to employees in elite teams in real-world companies.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#260

Post by bonestamp2 » Sat, Feb 21, 2015, 12:56 AM UTC

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…

It's the simple stuff that kills me.

My friend's wife is an elementary school teacher and she's one of those really arrogant people who always has something more "intelligent" to say than everyone else.

She recently took over a project I was working on with her husband (my friend) so I've been emailing a fair amount with her. Her grammar is unbelievable for a school teacher. I mean, she doesn't know the difference between your/you're, their/there, then/than!