Q for students taking Project Maths

dambarude

Anybody listening to ministers or government officials will have heard them talk about how Project Maths will totally change the way Maths is taught and learned. But I've been talking to some fifth years who have taken some of the Project Maths strands who say their teacher is doing it no differently to the older parts of the syllabus.

I envisaged students actually doing hands on things, leaving the classroom, and loads of groupwork. In your experience is this actually happening?

MegGustaa

dambarude wrote: »

Anybody listening to ministers or government officials will have heard them talk about how Project Maths will totally change the way Maths is taught and learned. But I've been talking to some fifth years who have taken some of the Project Maths strands who say their teacher is doing it no differently to the older parts of the syllabus.

I envisaged students actually doing hands on things, leaving the classroom, and loads of groupwork. In your experience is this actually happening?

I've done nearly all of Stats and Probability from Strand 1 (in TY, now heading into Fifth Year) and while the content is different it's being taught in much the same way as before. A little disappointing but considering it's a) the first time it's being taught and b) we're used to being taught this way it's not that bad. I'd hope that as the teachers become more comfortable teaching PM you'll see more of that kind of involvement. It'd certainly help with the understanding of the material - a lot of my class (Higher Level) are struggling in some way with it, including me.

Superbus

I'm going into 6th Year, we did geometry and the line last year. My teacher's really apathetic towards it, actually she apologised for being uncomfortable with the syllabus. She still guides us through the course, even the bits we're meant to find out ourselves, purely out of time constraints. The course takes so long that we can't afford going out to the pitches with a trundle wheel or something.

Chuchoter

The ordinary classes seem to do group work but it sounds like work you'd give to people in 5th class, not people approaching the leaving cert.
Maths has always been a team sport for me, we all talk about it in class and discuss various ways of doing things.

AnnaKin

umm as a fifth year having done the project maths:
cant say i love it- but its quite similiar to the course we had before- its a lot mor wordy though, some people joked that we were sitting an english exam!!
as for doing group work- we have done a bit of outside work-not a lot!
i'm done the project maths side of our maths course so for sixth year its revision :cool:
my teacher went to plenty of meetings to get a good grip of the course at the weekends and it really paid off, we know it well enough!