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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

#41

Post by mcgrill »

Raphmedia wrote: post #10
fidotron wrote: post #2

Underneath this is the simple fact that educational standards in Quebec are disgracefully bad. A frightening proportion of kids never graduate high school either, and making it into McGill is near the upper reaches of achievement for those that do. This is going to provoke a lot of kneejerk "but it's worse in [x]". No, in the developed world it's probably not. There are lots of dynamics unique to the Quebec situation…

That. Growing up in Quebec, I can honestly say that my mathematical education was really, really bad. I remember spending a whole year where we had no math teacher, so instead we had one of the french language teacher teach the class. We did mostly math related crosswords. All the kids were failing the class, so they simply made us all pass. Great job, school. I still have a lot of issues because of this. Hard to lea…

The public French school boards tend to have lower passing rates in maths and sciences then the public English boards though, chalk it up to the shit-show you need to be allowed to learn in English or whatever else might be at play. But the math and science reforms that Quebec implemented 8 years torpedoed basic math and science proficiency across the board.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#42

Post by PaulHoule »

I dunno, in elementary schools in the U.S. they start teaching the median by grade 2.

The mean is good when you want an actual expectation value (i.e. how much fast do I lose money when I play this slot machine) but the mean is not the tool to use for characterizing and unknown probability distrbution.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#43

Post by spunwasi »

fidotron wrote: post #2

Underneath this is the simple fact that educational standards in Quebec are disgracefully bad. A frightening proportion of kids never graduate high school either, and making it into McGill is near the upper reaches of achievement for those that do. This is going to provoke a lot of kneejerk "but it's worse in [x]". No, in the developed world it's probably not. There are lots of dynamics unique to the Quebec situation…

Well to be fair, we don't know that the 6 students called were from Quebec. McGill is a fairly popular school for kids from Ontario and the Maritimes provinces too.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#45

Post by jordigh »

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…

> McGill is not a great university

It still ranks pretty high:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGill_University#Rankings_and...

and they still sell those "Harvard: The McGill of America" sweatshirts every year.

https://glasgowuniversityabroad0910.wordpress.com/2009/10/16...

That B. Ed. students are coming so unprepared from McGill is quite sad.

Its liberal arts programme is also much bigger than Waterloo's, but comparable to UofT's.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#46

Post by japhyr »

jordigh wrote: post #36

As a McGill math grad, I must say that it was a running joke in the math department how the Education students didn't really need to know any math (some B. Ed. students shared classes with us during the first year or two). The B. Ed. students freely accepted this joke and were quite self-deprecating about their mathematical skills. Several of them even felt cheated for taking our "advanced" math classes which were, i…

This notion that you only need to know as much math as you're going to teach is ridiculous. The more your students struggle in math, the deeper your understanding of the subject needs to be. It takes a fair bit of skill and understanding to accurately diagnose and address misunderstandings.

Knowing higher level math also lets you help younger students learn things in a way that sets them up for success later on. Students can learn "advanced" concepts at a young age if presented at the right time, in the right way. But you can't introduce those concepts if you don't know them, and recognize when it's appropriate to introduce them.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#47

Post by growlix »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #9

For those of us who are not from Canada, can someone explain what McGill is? I feel like I'm missing a lot of context. edit: apparently it's a very prestigious university. I was assuming that it was a remedial high school program. Holy crap.

Whatever this means: http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-uni...

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#48

Post by strictnein »

Raphmedia wrote: post #12
pavel_lishin wrote: post #9

For those of us who are not from Canada, can someone explain what McGill is? I feel like I'm missing a lot of context. edit: apparently it's a very prestigious university. I was assuming that it was a remedial high school program. Holy crap.

An university.

> An university.

Did you go to McGill?

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#49

Post by mod »

t1m wrote: post #11

This is not surprising. My grade 4 kid's teacher told me that our kid "just might not be good at math, and that's OK". This is a shocking attitude, but one I find commonly held: that basic math is some kind of optional, specialized skill.

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck

She's also exhbiting a static mindset. She of all people should believe in the growth mindset.

Re: Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average

#50

Post by zaphar »

volandovengo wrote: post #16

Why is this #1 on the homepage?

Because hacking education is an interesting problem and a good portion of HN is shade tree mechanic discussion about interesting problems.

There's nothing wrong with shade tree mechanic discussions. They are an interesting diversion when you are trying to waste some time while drinking your coffee at the start of the workday.

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