bonus points for maths

pathway33

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0407/pay.html

The Minister today gave her backing for the introduction of bonus points for leaving cert maths. Anyone any more info on this?

Fad

Wonder if the bonus points will be retroactive for people who have already sat the leaving and are reapplying.

I have no info though.

SarcasticFairy

Doubt it'll be retroactive... Would that not cause mayhem?

MavisDavis

As far as I know, she added in her speech that the whole thing would depend on "a panel of experts" and their findings and whatnot. The Minister:

"While I will await and consider the views of the expert group, it is my view at this point that we could send a clear signal to our second level student population with the introduction of a CAO points bonus for achievement in Leaving Certificate maths."

Could happen this year, but you know how slowly politics works. Darn, and I was about to go hell for leather with the auld maths book..

Would this be for all courses/colleges or just some, like the way Limerick (I think...) is already awarding extra points for higher maths.

Ronan Keating

They will hardly begin this before 2012.

2011 Leaving Cert course has begun. Would it not be slightly unfair to some LC 2011'ers.

They were not aware that the changes would be made. If they had known they might have taken HL.

pathway33

Ronan Keating wrote: »

They will hardly begin this before 2012.

2011 Leaving Cert course has begun. Would it not be slightly unfair to some LC 2011'ers.

They were not aware that the changes would be made. If they had known they might have taken HL.

in her speech http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=&pcategory=10861&ecategory=11469&sectionpage=12251&language=EN&link=link001&page=1&doc=48913

she mentions 'in the short term' and then she says 'while I will await' and then she says 'send a clear signal to our second level student population'

In my book medium term is 3 to 5 years and so short term must be 2 or less. It would be seriously unfair if students sitting maths in 2011 were suddenly given an extra 50 points with no chance for OL students to catch up.

Liveit

pathway33 wrote: »

in her speech http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=&pcategory=10861&ecategory=11469&sectionpage=12251&language=EN&link=link001&page=1&doc=48913

she mentions 'in the short term' and then she says 'while I will await' and then she says 'send a clear signal to our second level student population'

In my book medium term is 3 to 5 years and so short term must be 2 or less. It would be seriously unfair if students sitting maths in 2011 were suddenly given an extra 50 points with no chance for OL students to catch up.

nah what would be unfair would to have a massive gap in levels between the HL and OL exams..... oh wait!

Mayoegian

pathway33 wrote: »

in her speech http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=&pcategory=10861&ecategory=11469&sectionpage=12251&language=EN&link=link001&page=1&doc=48913

she mentions 'in the short term' and then she says 'while I will await' and then she says 'send a clear signal to our second level student population'

In my book medium term is 3 to 5 years and so short term must be 2 or less. It would be seriously unfair if students sitting maths in 2011 were suddenly given an extra 50 points with no chance for OL students to catch up.

How would it be unfair? The OL students decided not to do HL Maths on the basis that they would not be able to understand the material. How does bonus points change that for them? The course is still the exact same.

almostnever

Mayoegian wrote: »

How would it be unfair? The OL students decided not to do HL Maths on the basis that they would not be able to understand the material. How does bonus points change that for them? The course is still the exact same.

Lots of people do ordinary level maths despite perhaps being capable of doing the higher level course, because they're playing the points game and deem it a waste of time when they weigh up how much effort they feel is necessary to do well. If there were bonus points, a student who may know he/she could get a C1 for example may decide to remain at higher level/attempt higher level because points wise, it could be worth their while.

pathway33

Mayoegian wrote: »

How would it be unfair? The OL students decided not to do HL Maths on the basis that they would not be able to understand the material. How does bonus points change that for them? The course is still the exact same.

No. Some of the OL students decide not to do HL Maths on the basis that the amount of effort is not worth an extra 10 points (HC1 v OA1), and they are right because they are much wiser to save tons of hours study and pick up an extra 5 or 10 points in each of their other subjects.

However if at the start of 5th year they knew that the points they would get were a reflection of the extra hours then they would opt for honours maths. If the extra points apply to LC 2011 then it's too late for the current 5th years to catch up.

Of course you are right that for some OL students it makes no difference because they wouldn't have chosen higher maths even if it was treble points.

DancingQueen:)

I think it sounds like a great idea. I'd love if it was brought in this year but there's probably no chance of that happening!

Ronan Keating

They cannot being it in in the middle of two LC Courses. They will wait until 2012 and give the pending 5th years of 2011 a warning of what is to come. Therefore the 5th years can decide what they want to do and not be caught out when they enter 6th year in 2012.

Sarn

Before they reformed the curriculum there were bonus points for honours maths, allowing for up to 140 points for an A1. As the course was made easier they were removed. At the time it was only worth your while doing it if you were anyway good at it. It was far easier to do ordinary level with next to no work and get an A. Ultimately it meant that the points for certain 'high achiever' courses were greater as a result.

Edit: 640 points was considered a perfect leaving, straight HA1s including maths.

pathway33

Sarn wrote: »

Before they reformed the curriculum there were bonus points for honours maths, allowing for up to 140 points for an A1. As the course was made easier they were removed. At the time it was only worth your while doing it if you were anyway good at it. It was far easier to do ordinary level with next to no work and get an A. Ultimately it meant that the points for certain 'high achiever' courses were greater as a result.

so a 600 point 'perfect' leaving would be an A1 in higher maths, another HA1 and 4 HA2's.

Was that at a time when there was no A1, A2, B1 etc? Just A, B, C, etc

Podge_irl

I've never entirely understood why Maths above anything else should receive bonus points.

Crow92

Not that i agree...even though i do (H) maths,

I believe the reasoning behind it is that like 8,000 or so people do honours maths out of like 55,000 which is crazy

jumpguy

With the new Project Maths I wonder if it'll be still supported...

Anyway, I'm all for bonus point in HL maths tbh. Doubt it'll apply to things like medicine though...

spurious

'In my day' there were bonus points for Honours Maths. If I recall correctly there were 5 points for a HL A and 7 points for a Maths HL A. It certainly made people think a bit before dropping to pass at the first sign of difficulty.

They would be unlikely to introduce a change for this year's exam - it would not be fair at this late stage.

SantryRed

Absolutely ridiculous that one subject should get higher points than any other. Complete disadvantage to people.

SarcasticFairy

It could also be said that the amount of work you have to put into HL Maths is ridiculous, and completely disproportionate to the rest of your six subjects (or whatever...). Even people who are good at maths seem to spend an obscene amount of time on it...

Not really a disadvantage... You put more work in, you get more points....

elarkla

SantryRed wrote: »

Absolutely ridiculous that one subject should get higher points than any other. Complete disadvantage to people.

There's so much more work involved in higher maths... It deserves more points as it's so hard to do well in! How can you really say that an A in some of the easier subjects (e.g. music or Home Ec - not trying to take from them) is worth the same (therefore as easy to get) as an A in higher maths?

Miss Lockhart

I think it's bad that such a small number of students are doing HL maths. The government, industry, universities etc want more people doing HL, especially in science related areas. Fine, but at the same time I don't see how someone doing literature etc having A1 HL maths skills will be better for the country. If they want certain people to have better maths levels then why not just make it a requirement for more courses? Why are people able to do chem/physics or whatever without HL maths if the powers that be are not happy with that?

Podge_irl

elarkla wrote: »

There's so much more work involved in higher maths... It deserves more points as it's so hard to do well in! How can you really say that an A in some of the easier subjects (e.g. music or Home Ec - not trying to take from them) is worth the same (therefore as easy to get) as an A in higher maths?

Is that really true though? Maths is the same as any other subject - some people are good at it and the amount of work one has to do varies wildly. A lot of students appear to have the wrong impression of how much work is involved in maths. A big problem I found when giving grinds wasn't that students found maths to be too much work, but figured it would be too much work and so didn't try very hard.

I don't think the key to getting more people to do HL Maths is to simply give extra points for it. Efforts need to be made to ensure it's being taught properly and the course needs to be looked at to some degree (I'm not a fan of Project Maths). There is an attitude towards HL Maths that I think needs to be addressed. Giving extra points for it just reinforces the image that it's an impossibly hard subject.

Murchal

I really think giving students extra points for higher LC maths is going down the wrong road. Of course I understand why it's been suggested - too few people doing h maths, trying to encourage people to do science based subjects at third level etc. but the Dept. of Ed have got to realise that this would be putting students as a disadvantage who are good at other subjects, but not necessarily maths. (Just as someone who's gifted at maths might not be great when it comes to languages.) I know science and maths are imp. for Ireland's economy, but Arts, Business, Law etc. should be regarded with just as much importance.

I did my LC last year. I really like Science and got A1s in Phys, Bio and Chem, but dropped down to Ord Maths, because I was afraid I'd fail higher maths (got a D3 in mocks) and then my LC would be worth basically nothing. I'm doing Medicine now in TCD, which has no maths-based material on the curriculum and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think my lack of Higher Maths will make be a lesser doctor; a lack of empathy, understanding, or willingness to work hard might, but maths surely not. If there had been extra points last year for Higher maths, I would be able to do what i'm doing now....and for what?

Davidius

Without giving it much thought, I'm of the opinion that that wouldn't be the greatest idea especially if it's not course specific. You'd be unfairly rewarding those who have an aptitude for the subject.

For example, I found A1s in maths to be quite easy to obtain but I found there was a lot more work involved in getting a C3 in HL Irish.

whadabouchasir

Murchal wrote: »

I really think giving students extra points for higher LC maths is going down the wrong road. Of course I understand why it's been suggested - too few people doing h maths, trying to encourage people to do science based subjects at third level etc.

If they want to encourage more people to do HL maths then they really only have 2 options either make the course easier,which would do more harm than good,or give extra points for HL maths.You could argue that this isn't fair to students who are better at languages than maths,but if you are good at languages then you have more subjects that you could do very well in,english,Irish,French,German even History and Geography to a lesser extent.However there really aren't an awful lot of other subjects similar to maths except for Applied Maths,and very few schools do this as a subject.

lc2010

Bring it in today...........200 points for Maths A1:p:p, therefore I could stop caring about the stupid orals!!!
On a serious note what about extra points for the three core subjects?

Murchal

lc2010 wrote: »

On a serious note what about extra points for the three core subjects?

Well someone already gave the fact that only 8,000 students out of 55-60,000 do Higher maths as a reason for introducing bonus points for maths. But if you look at Irish, the number doing higher level is not much higher at 14,000. If they started giving extra points for higher irish, there'd be uproar, seeing as there's so many people wanting to make Irish non-compulsory.

As well, if they start giving more than the traditional 100 points for maths, in a couple of years, who's to say the gov won't be saying that the standard of ..I dunno...Tech. Drawing is really poor and we need to encourage people to take it on for the sake of the construction sector, so they then give an extra 20 or so points for doing that subject. Then someone will say "What about Subject X" and so on. It'll be a never ending cycle. Our system's not perfect but I think it's still better to leave it as it is, at least on this issue.

Podge_irl

whadabouchasir wrote: »

If they want to encourage more people to do HL maths then they really only have 2 options either make the course easier,which would do more harm than good,or give extra points for HL maths.

Nonsense. They could try simply encouraging people to take it. Tackling the (mistaken imo) view that it is massively difficult and giving careful consideration to how it is taught and certain elements of the course would help. It would also help massively to have smaller Maths classes, but I can't see that happening any time soon. It's one of the few subjects that teaches problem solving skills and an analytic approach to problems, but by that same nature it requires somewhat more specialised teaching imo.

Ultimately, I'm not that bothered by the lack of people taking HL Maths. It would be nice for the govt to throw out platitudes for themselves about how they've improved the numbers taking HL Maths, but 8,000 students a year taking it is ample for the number of University level courses that require maths. The OL Maths course is in some ways more suited to those who will be going into subjects that don't have a mathematical basis in university (or indeed just going into jobs). It should concentrate on giving people a sound mathematical basis so they can do things like understand taxes/statistics etc (the latter is especially poorly understood by the populace at large). A more pressing concern is how poor many of the people who take HL Maths actually are at the subject.

_Bella_

There is so much work involved in HL maths... they should definitely bring it in preferably for the LC 2012