The Geniuses' Thread

Pygmalion

esbo wrote: »

You don't need arrays to do any maths, they are contrived things which I think should not be taught because as you found it puts people off.

Arrays shouldn't be taught?
No offence but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

While he's at it I suppose he shouldn't bother learning what a function is or what the different data-types are?

Aoibheann

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Pfft, girls just don't get Science... >_>

*runs*

Yourself and the three guys that thanked that post are on my list. :P

I'm totally better at it than all of you.. ¬_¬

esbo

esbo wrote: »

You don't need arrays to do any maths, they are contrived things which I think should not be taught because as you found it puts people off.

Well, if you want a set in maths, you need some kind of list object. Some programming languages only have arrays to do this, so you would definitely need arrays for maths.
Unless you wanted to program every data structure yourself and build one for sets, but that is more complex than using arrays anyway.

Davidius

Aoibheann wrote: »

Yourself and the three guys that thanked that post are on my list. :P

I'm totally better at it than all of you.. ¬_¬

Maybe, but it's been collectively decided that you aren't a girl.

Piste

I know science

Aoibheann

Davidius wrote: »

Maybe, but it's been collectively decided that you aren't a girl.

Ah here.

AH HERE.

Pygmalion declaring that I have the brain of a man has spiralled too, too far. ;_;

I think you're all using different definitions of man, tbh.

SarahBeep!

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Pfft, girls just don't get Science... >_>

*runs*

Careful now!!

Insect Overlord

SarahBeep! wrote: »

Careful now!!

I was wondering how long it would take for you to respond to that!

Pygmalion

Insect Overlord wrote: »

I was wondering how long it would take for you to respond to that!

Yes IO, women are indeed slow.

Insect Overlord

Pygmalion wrote: »

Yes IO, women are indeed slow.

You clearly haven't been reading the Feedback forum... >_>

SarahBeep!

Pygmalion wrote: »

Yes IO, women are indeed slow.

You clearly don't value your personal safety.

Chuchoter

Rabble rabble rabble

Girl nerds, unite!:mad::P

esbo

Pygmalion wrote: »

Arrays shouldn't be taught?
No offence but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

While he's at it I suppose he shouldn't bother learning what a function is or what the different data-types are?

You don't need 'arrays' they are an artificially concept.
Note I referred to array in maths.

esbo

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, if you want a set in maths, you need some kind of list object. Some programming languages only have arrays to do this, so you would definitely need arrays for maths.
Unless you wanted to program every data structure yourself and build one for sets, but that is more complex than using arrays anyway.

I only glanced at his post and I though he was referring to arrays in maths as he goes onto mention maths.

esbo

esbo wrote: »

You don't need 'arrays' they are an artificially concept.
Note I referred to array in maths.

What I was saying is that you do need one artificial construct for a group of objects. One of the main applications of computing is to maths and science and we need a list or array in order to deal with the ideas of sets, vectors or matrices, all of which are absolutely essential to maths.

Therefore, you do need arrays to do maths, and you do need them in computer languages.

(The linked-list and other such data structures do the job too, but they're equally complicated anyway, and arrays are the generally accepted all-purpose pre-optimisation standard for a collection of objects).

Oh and lol at "Arrays are an artificial concept" - I suppose Turing machines just turn up in the African Savannah?

Pygmalion

esbo wrote: »

You don't need 'arrays' they are an artificially concept.
Note I referred to array in maths.

Can't believe I missed this post for so long.

Note to aspiring programmers, do not learn about the following things:
Characters: The alphabet is an artificial concept, the ASCII encoding of it doubly so.
Strings of text: It's characters AND an array.
Float/Double/Real (whatever "numbers with decimal points" are in the language you're using): Nothing but natural numbers exist.
Functions: Really now, return addresses and arguments are debatable, but LOCAL VARIABLES? WHAT ARTIFICIAL WITCHCRAFT IS THIS?!?!
Objects: Self-explanatory given the above.

Probably best to stick to Assembly language, just make sure you aren't using any higher level features provided by your assembler.

On a related note please make sure you're not running an Operating System which uses protected mode, allows more process/threads than you have processors or uses virtual memory. They provide security, speed and stability, respectively, but only through artificial abstraction of the hardware witchcraft.

Noel2k9

Noel2k9 wrote: »

Nonetheless HL Maths isn't a requirement for practically ANY courses in Ireland.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be.

*cough* primary school teaching

SarahBeep!

Deleted User wrote: »

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be.

*cough* primary school teaching

Yeah, because all under-12s need to know how to integrate...

SarahBeep!

SarahBeep! wrote: »

Yeah, because all under-12s need to know how to integrate...

No, because to understand how best to educate young children in maths, a good understanding of maths is required.
Obviously anybody with OL maths can do primary school maths themselves, but different children need different ways of looking at things, so proficiency in maths is quite important in a teacher.
The standard of numeracy in this country is evidence for this.

*looks around for more suitable thread... hmmm*

SarahBeep!

Deleted User wrote: »

No, because to understand how best to educate young children in maths, a good understanding of maths is required.
Obviously anybody with OL maths can do primary school maths themselves, but different children need different ways of looking at things, so proficiency in maths is quite important in a teacher.
The standard of numeracy in this country is evidence for this.

*looks around for more suitable thread... hmmm*

I got a D3 in HL in my LC, I'm doing Science&Maths Education.

Did I walk outta my LC understand what I'd just written? No.
Would I have gotten an A1 in pass? Yes.
Why didn't I just do pass? Coz I needed to prove to myself I could do it. And I did it. And it meant more to me than the 60points that came with the A1.

Maths in college? Easier than HL LC. MUCH easier, and I'll be teaching second level (which they're dumbing down)
There's no need to ask Primary teachers to be even more qualified. First we expect them all to be fluent in Irish, now it's every language from Polish to all the different dialects of sub-saharan africa.
I've done primary school placement, the maths isn't rocket science. It's adding...and subtracting...and multiplying...and dividing. My Da who doesn't know there's 180° in a triangle could teach primary school maths if it's just about understanding how to do it. But it's not. It all comes down to pedagogics, not whether you can handle the pink paper or you're gonna take the blue.


My yeahhhhh? My maths lecturer first semester last year was amazingly beautiful and witty and funny! Thanks for reminding me of his existance Conor! :P

*edit*

Another one

I get to synthsize Asprin in a lab tomorrow how cool is that!

KnifeWRENCH

Deleted User wrote: »

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be.

*cough* primary school teaching

Deleted User wrote: »

No, because to understand how best to educate young children in maths, a good understanding of maths is required.
Obviously anybody with OL maths can do primary school maths themselves, but different children need different ways of looking at things, so proficiency in maths is quite important in a teacher.
The standard of numeracy in this country is evidence for this.

*looks around for more suitable thread... hmmm*

[offtopic]

I'm normally in the "Maths YAY" side of C&H, but I requiring HL maths for Primary School teaching is complete overkill tbh. A good grade in OL Maths should be enough; it shows at least some basic understanding of the subject, which is all you really need imo.

Besides, it's more important to be a good teacher of Maths than just to be good at it yourself. Someone with an A1 in HL Maths may be a hopeless teacher; if you can't get through to kids and highlight the importance of maths in a way that they understand, then whatever your own standard of maths is is irrelevant.

[/offtopic]

msbrightside

Ok, sorry I know I'm being totally off-topic here but I don't know where else to put this, I'm sure someone will delete if it's not needed.
But yeah, I don't think HL maths is needed for primary school teaching, OL maths is advanced enough for that level of teaching as half of the stuff you learn in secondary school maths won't be learned in primary. What matters is that someone is able to help children understand the basics of maths. Leave the harder stuff for when they go to second level.
One thing though I thought was weird and I maybe totally wrong, and I'm open to correction, but apparently you don't have to have HL English, which I would have thought would have been important. Good spelling and grammar seems like something that would be very important to teach children at a young age, especially since there is all the worry over young people writing in text speak.
Then again you might need Honours English.. This is just what one of the people hoping to do teaching in my year said!

Anywho yay going to NUIG open day tomorrow! I hope it'll be good, I was at the open day last year but we didn't really look around that much. I really liked it though, seemed like a nice place!

ihavequestions

msbrightside wrote: »

But yeah, I don't think HL maths is needed for primary school teaching, OL maths is advanced enough for that level of teaching as half of the stuff you learn in secondary school maths won't be learned in primary. What matters is that someone is able to help children understand the basics of maths. Leave the harder stuff for when they go to second level.

WHOOOO WAIT. You don't need honors maths for primary teaching??? Who told you that? They are wrong!!!! You only need honors irish!

SarahBeep!

SarahBeep! wrote: »

I got a D3 in HL in my LC, I'm doing Science&Maths Education.

Did I walk outta my LC understand what I'd just written? No.
Would I have gotten an A1 in pass? Yes.
Why didn't I just do pass? Coz I needed to prove to myself I could do it. And I did it. And it meant more to me than the 60points that came with the A1.

Maths in college? Easier than HL LC. MUCH easier, and I'll be teaching second level (which they're dumbing down)
There's no need to ask Primary teachers to be even more qualified. First we expect them all to be fluent in Irish, now it's every language from Polish to all the different dialects of sub-saharan africa.
I've done primary school placement, the maths isn't rocket science. It's adding...and subtracting...and multiplying...and dividing. My Da who doesn't know there's 180° in a triangle could teach primary school maths if it's just about understanding how to do it. But it's not. It all comes down to pedagogics, not whether you can handle the pink paper or you're gonna take the blue.

If we expect maths teachers to have college degrees, then it's reasonable to expect primary school teachers to have higher level maths.
Secondary school teachers don't need to teach the students how to describe general relativistic space-time curves but college maths is still a good pre-requisite for teaching secondary school maths.

KnifeWRENCH wrote: »

[offtopic]

I'm normally in the "Maths YAY" side of C&H, but I requiring HL maths for Primary School teaching is complete overkill tbh. A good grade in OL Maths should be enough; it shows at least some basic understanding of the subject, which is all you really need imo.

Besides, it's more important to be a good teacher of Maths than just to be good at it yourself. Someone with an A1 in HL Maths may be a hopeless teacher; if you can't get through to kids and highlight the importance of maths in a way that they understand, then whatever your own standard of maths is is irrelevant.

[/offtopic]

My view is that some children won't understand it when taught in a way s.t. other children would find it easy to learn, and then the teacher will have to see the problem in a different way. While maths at primary school isn't difficult by any standards, having multiple ways of looking at the problem is something that's related to maths ability in general.

And I'm referring to 5th/6th class maths really, when they'll be learning things like factoring. From my experience with ordinary level students at junior and leaving cert level*, somewhere down the line, somebody hasn't explained basic ideas like this to them, because they can't even do this with whole numbers, never mind x's and y's.

*Selection bias, I know.


Oh, I do have a yaaah: Buying shoes and tie for my spiffy-looking wedding suit, and getting to do a vector calculus assignment. Yay!

**Timbuk2**

I personally think HL Maths should be a requirement for Primary School teaching. It's not like Secondary school teaching, where you may not be teaching maths depending on what you are qualified for. With Primary School teaching, you must teach the kids Maths. Why is there a HL C3 requirement, but not Maths requirements? Nobody could say that Irish (a language that is becoming less and less prominent) is more important than Maths (used in thousands of applications across the world, an is essential to nearly every service we use, whether we realise it or not).

Insect Overlord

I did Honours Maths up to the Leaving Cert pre-exams. They didn't go very well, so I dropped down to pass for the June exams. Does that mean, even after three years of pedagogy and practice, you'd still feel I'm not qualified to teach maths to 11 and 12 year old children?

**Timbuk2**

Well, my twin brother just got the Irish requirement, HC3, and is doing the BA course in St. Pats (and is intending to get into the postgraduate primary teaching course). If he had have gotten a HD1, would you still have felt that he was capable of teaching Irish to 11/12yo kids? Why is there even an Irish requirement, and not a Maths one?

Insect Overlord

That didn't answer my question

EuropeanSon

LC Ordinary Maths is more than enough to teach Primary school children. I don't remember what Primary school maths involved, but is there even any algebra?