Project Maths - what is your biggest problem with this?

mcpaddington

Does anyone know if we are able to answer questions without using maths? For instance in my mocks we had a question to find the equation of two circles that where on a line that went through point A. It said the radius of the circles where 5 so I put a radius of 5 on my compass and got the centre points of the circles which then got me the equations. In the real thing would I get full marks for that? It cut out must of the work in that question so I'm not sure.

mathsman123

Hi guys,

I was referred to this thread by a student of mine.

Project Maths is causing huge worry amongst some students. I hope I can allay some of those fears here.

<snip> I will openly admit I am a tutor at <snip> a <snip> grinds school. I'm simply here to try ease the fears some students are having. If anyone wants to contact me I will give free advise. If rules permit me to include a phone number I will do so also.

To answer the original post: I have two primary concerns. One being long term and one being short term.

In the long term, my biggest concern is that Project Maths will bring down the standard of maths in our country. I could rant about this until the cows come home.

In the short term, all concern must be with the students who have to sit their exams this June. We must support them in any way we can. I hope I can be part of that.

There are some great points in this thread from both sides of the fence. In my estimation approx 60% of students HATE project maths, approx 10% like it and the rest are sitting on the fence.

I have pinpointed some of the points posters have made so far:

PictureFrame wrote: »

My main problem with project maths is:



NO FÚCKING EXAM PAPERS!!!

I agree with regards the lack of exam papers. Who would it have hurt to bring out 5 or 6 sample exams. It helps everyone involved and was a no-brainer in my opinion. However, what worries me is the reaction of many teachers to this problem.
<snip>

AdamD wrote: »

I did project maths last year, we had even less resources. Be grateful!

Adam, I felt it was very unfair on you guys from the pilot schools to be thrown in at ‘the deep end’.
<snip>Im not here to slate any school but both the parents and students from these schools are getting very stressed. The Leaving Cert(and Junior Cert) are stressful enough as it is. Additional stress is the last thing that should be heaped on students.

<snip> What I will say to anyone who is worried is that there is plenty of time to get prepared. Put in the work from now until the exams and you will do well.

Superbus wrote: »

No problem with that, it's the fact that up to JC we've had to learn stuff off, and suddenly in 5th Year have this 'understanding' nonsense (yeah, I said it) thrown upon us. It's a different method of learning, and it's unfair on us, and the current 5th Years. After that, when the LCers will have done Project Maths for the JC, I'm all for it.

Completely agree. Project Maths should have been rolled out from 1st year, there’s no doubt about it. Im sure some posters on here know why this is not the case. Im not sure if I am allowed to explain the reasons on this forum.

Patchy~ wrote: »

I heard if they ask you what conclusion you can draw from a graph and you say something like "Girls play more sport than boys" you get 0 marks for making an assumption and not saying "in general"?

Patchy, don’t worry, this is not the case.<snip>

Mod: The marking schemes are all available on www.examinations.ie

spurious wrote: »

I place the blame for that squarely at the door of 'educational' businesses and institutes.

Unfortunately, many newer teachers have fallen into the easy trap of teaching to the exam instead of teaching the syllabus and now you see the trouble it is causing with the Project Maths syllabus.

Spurious, I can see exactly where you are coming from.
However I don’t think schools like mine are at fault. We exist because there is a demand for us and are simply trying to help students. <snip>

chomps_x wrote: »

I HATE the little grid you have to write in :mad: I structure an answer a certain way and there just isn't enough space! Grrrrr

Chomps,
If you like you can simply ask for spare paper and not write anything in the boxes. They still HAVE TO give you the marks.

lestat21 wrote: »

My issue with project maths is that students are learning off terminology such as the definition of theorems, axioms etc. For a syllabus that is supposed to discourage rote learning, it just makes no sense to me...

Although you don’t have to learn definition off by heart, many students are going down this road.
I don’t think this should be the way, but if I am to give advise to students sitting their exam in June, I would simply say learn them off by heart!
<snip>

finality wrote: »

oh! That reminds me. Can we only be asked the 3 new theorems, or can we be asked the junior cert ones too?

<snip>

Mod: The syllabus is available on www.education.ie

tacofries wrote: »

my teacher is out cause she is sick. We have just started doing paper two a month ago. the new teacher we have cannot answer all of the project maths questions and the ones she can it takes her a day or two to do it. I am the student and she is the teacher. When we dont know how to answer a question in the papers we just have to pass over it as there is no answers online.

I am now starting to panic with maths. My teacher doesn't know what we have to do, I don't know what we have to do, and there's so much sh1t online ( except actual worked out examples) that i don't know where to start.

I am now panicking.

Would I be right in thinking that if a sub- teacher just out of college got a job replacing a teacher for a month after the in-service for project maths had already taken place, she would have got no clear run-down on what the course entails.! Therefore been clueless about what needs to be done. Thats what it seems like to me

Tacofries, don’t panic. You have plenty of time to prepare yourself. <snip>

I hope I have been of help to students. For those of you sitting your exams in June I wish you the best of luck. Put in the work from now until then and you will do fine.

Regards,
Brian

Canard

Thank you Brian for the very helpful post!

FaoiSin

Hello Brian. Thanks for the helpful info I was wondering with regard to 6 (A) on Paper 2 is it certain it can only be Constructions/Trigonometry/Definitions? We won't be starting Geometry until after Easter in school and I was wondering will there be many definitions? I hope I can handle the theorems/constructions as I was fairly good at them at JC level but I have no experience with definitions of any kind.

MathsManiac

mathsman123 wrote: »

...
Chomps,
If you like you can simply ask for spare paper and not write anything in the boxes. They still HAVE TO give you the marks.
...

They don't HAVE TO do any such thing. This seems to me to be a rather dangerous piece of advice, as it flatly contradicts what the SEC said in their circular:

"As noted above, paper 2 at all levels will be presented as a combined question-and-answer booklet. Candidates must write their answers on this booklet, and marks may be forfeited if they do not do so."

mathsman123

MathsManiac wrote: »

They don't HAVE TO do any such thing. This seems to me to be a rather dangerous piece of advice, as it flatly contradicts what the SEC said in their circular:

"As noted above, paper 2 at all levels will be presented as a combined question-and-answer booklet. Candidates must write their answers on this booklet, and marks may be forfeited if they do not do so."

MathsManiac, i understand your concerns. I can assure students this is not dangerous advice. I have contacts in this field, as you do I'm sure. Answers given on spare paper rather than the in the boxes will get the marks.

YeaaahFaoiSin wrote: »

<snip>

Hello Brian. Thanks for the helpful info I was wondering with regard to 6 (A) on Paper 2 is it certain it can only be Constructions/Trigonometry/Definitions? We won't be starting Geometry until after Easter in school and I was wondering will there be many definitions? I hope I can handle the theorems/constructions as I was fairly good at them at JC level but I have no experience with definitions of any kind.

Q6(a) will be either Theorem 11, 12 or 13 and/or any of the constructions and/or any of the definitions. These cannot be asked anywhere else in the exam. You will not be asked to prove any Junior Cert Theorems, despite what some textbooks say and what some teachers are advising.

If you need a copy of the definitions in simplified form, which will get you full marks, simply drop me a private message and i will email them over to you.

Also i must point out that some theorems in some textbooks have mistakes, depending on what edition you are using. Also some textbooks overcomplicate the theorems in my opinion, so again if anyone would like a copy of my simplified theorems just send me a private message and ill send them over to you.

Regards,
Brian

spurious

In fairness, mathsman, you could be anyone posting here, 'contacts' or not.

If you wish to advertise your business here on boards, please contact hello@boards.ie or at least clear it with the mods of the forum you are posting in.

Thread re-opened. Thanks to the mods for suggested edits.

whiteandlight

mathsman123 wrote: »

MathsManiac, i understand your concerns. I can assure students this is not dangerous advice. I have contacts in this field, as you do I'm sure. Answers given on spare paper rather than the in the boxes will get the marks.

This is very dangerous advice to give. If students answer completely on spare paper and write nothing on their script then the SEC is perfectly entitled to say that they will implement the circular. The spare paper is as you said-"spare" and I would not be advising students to go directly against an SEC circular based on "contacts in the field" from a poster on the internet.

My advice to students to simply get used to it is to buy a maths copy and start writing in it. You do get used to it fairly quickly. I give all my class tests in this format now so that students can accustom themselves to it. They no longer have a problem either with the boxes or with calling for spare paper should they run out of space on the test/exam and the junior cycle students haven't even noticed that its a change.

Indiego

Musicmental85 wrote: »

This is very dangerous advice to give. If students answer completely on spare paper and write nothing on their script then the SEC is perfectly entitled to say that they will implement the circular. The spare paper is as you said-"spare" and I would not be advising students to go directly against an SEC circular based on "contacts in the field" from a poster on the internet.

My advice to students to simply get used to it is to buy a maths copy and start writing in it. You do get used to it fairly quickly. I give all my class tests in this format now so that students can accustom themselves to it. They no longer have a problem either with the boxes or with calling for spare paper should they run out of space on the test/exam and the junior cycle students haven't even noticed that its a change.

I agree with you about that being a dangerous tactic,
what I would plan to do is do all the rough work on spare paper, and then once the answer is worked out write the needed information onto the answer booklet - that being said that way of doing that paper would take up time, but I dont find it a problem (yet)

QueenofSpades

Anyone else hating the way the marks are allocated? The same amount of marks for the first 6 questions as the last 2, it seems ridiculous to me!:mad:

FaoiSin

If you could message me them that'd be great What book do you recommend? We're using Active Maths

whiteandlight

Indiego wrote: »

I agree with you about that being a dangerous tactic,
what I would plan to do is do all the rough work on spare paper, and then once the answer is worked out write the needed information onto the answer booklet - that being said that way of doing that paper would take up time, but I dont find it a problem (yet)

That would probably be fine though as you said time could be an issue in that case. Really the best is to just start on the paper and move to spare if and when required.

whiteandlight

QueenofSpades wrote: »

Anyone else hating the way the marks are allocated? The same amount of marks for the first 6 questions as the last 2, it seems ridiculous to me!:mad:

Remember that the final two questions are combination questions leg. Probabliltiy and statistics whereas the first ones are short questions on in individual topics. Ive a feeling I have a breakdown of the overall marks somewhere,I'll try and root it out!

lestat21

mathsman123 wrote: »

MathsManiac, i understand your concerns. I can assure students this is not dangerous advice. I have contacts in this field, as you do I'm sure. Answers given on spare paper rather than the in the boxes will get the marks.

Also i must point out that some theorems in some textbooks have mistakes, depending on what edition you are using.

Ahhh the sec want students to eventually write all their answers on the exam paper, this will include graphs and charts. Students will have to get used to the boxes and the sooner the better!!!

If some students have big writing dont be afraid of finishing the question at the back of the booklet, just label your answer clearly. And if you think your answer is incorrect you can put your second attempt at the back or on spare paper... so stop worrying bout the damn boxes!!!!!

In all fairness any mistakes in the proofs would be spotted and corrected in class and I dont really understand why you're assuming that is not so.... There are a fair few mistake in the new books but teachers are very good at sharing this type of information. Math depts are also addressing problems such as a lack of resources by working together. I really find that your offer of help to students seems to assume that all teacher are unprepared or just plain useless... I mean correct proofs and easy to understand definitions should be the norm in every class!! I'm sorry if I sound bit rude bt it was my first response and I'm just been honest..

mathsman123

spurious wrote: »

In fairness, mathsman, you could be anyone posting here, 'contacts' or not.

If you wish to advertise your business here on boards, please contact hello@boards.ie or at least clear it with the mods of the forum you are posting in.

Thread re-opened. Thanks to the mods for suggested edits.

My apologies Spurious, I admit I was not fully aware of the rules on posting. I have sent an email to hello@boards.ie for your attention.

Musicmental85 wrote: »

My advice to students to simply get used to it is to buy a maths copy and start writing in it. You do get used to it fairly quickly. I give all my class tests in this format now so that students can accustom themselves to it.

I really like this idea. Fair play on taking the initiative with your students. Sometimes the simple ideas are the best. I will look to implement this with my own students in the near future.

YeaaahFaoiSin wrote: »

If you could message me them that'd be great What book do you recommend? We're using Active Maths

No problem, do I need an email address to send files?
Of the textbooks out there, I would recommend Active Maths, followed by Text and Tests, then Active Maths.
In my opinion there are good bits in each book and bad bits in each book.
Time permitting, I would recommend you learn the methods from one book but practice the questions from all three.

lestat21 wrote: »

In all fairness any mistakes in the proofs would be spotted and corrected in class and I dont really understand why you're assuming that is not so.... There are a fair few mistake in the new books but teachers are very good at sharing this type of information.

Without being rude, I would have to disagree. <snip> In four major southside schools the mistake in the theorem was not mentioned to the students by the teachers. When I brought it up in my class it was the first time theses students had heard about it.

lestat21 wrote: »

Math depts are also addressing problems such as a lack of resources by working together. I really find that your offer of help to students seems to assume that all teacher are unprepared or just plain useless... I mean correct proofs and easy to understand definitions should be the norm in every class!! I'm sorry if I sound bit rude bt it was my first response and I'm just been honest..

Apologies if I gave the impression that I was tarring all teachers with the same brush.
I have found that SOME maths depts are NOT working together. A perfect example would be my students from one particular school spending 2 weeks covering a topic not even on the project maths curriculum. When they told their teacher he was embarrassed and fully apologetic.

I think all these problems could have been avoided if project maths had been implemented from 1st year onwards. It’s a shame really.

Regards,
Brian

Mysteriouschic

I don't have a clue what to do in project maths. Also some of the answer there isn't a precise answer , it's like general knowledge .
I've only had a few months to get to grips with this course as I'm repeating and we spent most of last year on paper 1 and now we're on paper 2. I don't really understand the paper . Some parts do seem easy I just don't get certain questions .

I need a c3 could I pass paper 1 and just try and do extremely well on that? then get a few questions on paper 2 to get a c3? ordinary level?

Zaffy

I used to dislike Project Maths until I realised something.

It deals with all the aspects of maths.

Maths is problem solving, and problem solving has the 4 areas:
Identifying
Translating
Solving
Comprehending the results.

In the old maths course, people would just be solving the problem.

In this new maths course, you identify what the problem is, you translate this problem into maths, you solve the problem, then you look at the results.

It focuses on people being logical as opposed to just good at maths.

mcpaddington

mcpaddington wrote: »

Does anyone know if we are able to answer questions without using maths? For instance, in my mocks we had a question to find the equation of two circles that where on a line that went through point (2,-1). It said the radius of the circles where 5, so I put a radius of 5 on my compass and got the centre points of the circles which then got me the equations. In the real thing would I get full marks for that? I got the correct answers by the way.

Does anyone know the answer to this?

Togepi

mcpaddington wrote: »

Does anyone know the answer to this?

I think you'd get the marks. I did something similar for a probability question before, and my teacher said that because it's project Maths, I should get the marks. It makes sense though because you're showing that you understand it, instead of just throwing down a formula and hoping you're using the right one without knowing what you're actually doing!

mcpaddington

Togepi wrote: »

I think you'd get the marks. I did something similar for a probability question before, and my teacher said that because it's project Maths, I should get the marks. It makes sense though because you're showing that you understand it, instead of just throwing down a formula and hoping you're using the right one without knowing what you're actually doing!

Yea that's the way I saw it too, I was only given low partial credit for it though

finality

mcpaddington wrote: »

Does anyone know if we are able to answer questions without using maths? For instance in my mocks we had a question to find the equation of two circles that where on a line that went through point A. It said the radius of the circles where 5 so I put a radius of 5 on my compass and got the centre points of the circles which then got me the equations. In the real thing would I get full marks for that? It cut out must of the work in that question so I'm not sure.

How can a circle be on a line though? I can't really picture it. Could you post the actual question?

Anonymo

Togepi wrote: »

I think you'd get the marks. I did something similar for a probability question before, and my teacher said that because it's project Maths, I should get the marks. It makes sense though because you're showing that you understand it, instead of just throwing down a formula and hoping you're using the right one without knowing what you're actually doing!

I doubt you'd get full marks for this. You're doing a maths course so you need to do some maths! Using a construction type thing will lead to a good intuition as to what the right answer is but you cannot be sure unless you solve the equations. For example what if the certre point of the circle was (2.01,5.1) and you wrote down (since it's pretty hard to measure very accurately with a ruler) that the answer was (2,5). Then all you'd get are very low attempt marks. Even if you got the answer right that would be a fluke since you'd be reliant on the question maker making the answer have nice round figures.
On the other hand, if you gave a decent attempt at solving the equations but got the final answer wrong, then you'd probably get the majority of the marks on offer.

Zaffy

Graphing in an exam, while being helpful for understanding what your result is looking to be around, will NOT get your full marks. I'd say attempt marks, at the most.

A sketch can not be used as an answer as you are unsure of accuracy.

Do the actual maths, or you'll find yourself getting a lot less in maths than you expect.

Togepi

Anonymo wrote: »

I doubt you'd get full marks for this. You're doing a maths course so you need to do some maths! Using a construction type thing will lead to a good intuition as to what the right answer is but you cannot be sure unless you solve the equations. For example what if the certre point of the circle was (2.01,5.1) and you wrote down (since it's pretty hard to measure very accurately with a ruler) that the answer was (2,5). Then all you'd get are very low attempt marks. Even if you got the answer right that would be a fluke since you'd be reliant on the question maker making the answer have nice round figures.
On the other hand, if you gave a decent attempt at solving the equations but got the final answer wrong, then you'd probably get the majority of the marks on offer.

Good point. My answer was for probability and it was a question where I knew I was dealing with whole numbers, so in my case full marks should be given, but they'd probably be stricter for questions on the line and the circle.

Smiley Laura

Anyone else hoping to go on and do maths in college? I'm a little worried that project maths isn't preparing us very well for college maths...not sure if that's accurate though.

MegGustaa

Smiley Laura wrote: »

Anyone else hoping to go on and do maths in college? I'm a little worried that project maths isn't preparing us very well for college maths...not sure if that's accurate though.

It's fine if you want to stay in Ireland for college, because the colleges will adjust their programmes as everyone coming through from Irish secondary schools will be in the same boat. In fact I have a friend who's in freshman maths in UCD at the moment who said they re-did a lot of the Project Maths statistics in the first few weeks of her statistics lectures this year.

They've reduced the amount of calculus you learn (from 2014 onwards) which is slightly problematic for some courses (eg Engineering) but like even on the old course there was never *that* much integral & differential calculus done at higher level. I did all the 2013 Calculus stuff but I've been ill and I'm putting off my LC til 2014, so I'm familiar enough with what they changed and it's not massively significant. They've added in a lot more on Functions than was on it previously and I think that's a positive step, even if it's at the expense of integration.

Personally I think we should have a much more advanced Maths course available for Leaving Cert students than we do now, for those who want to pursue it further, with more Calculus etc. But as it is now, I'm still not worried about what they cut out cos like I said, we'll all be in the same boat going into college and the universities will be aware of that.

Smiley Laura

Ok so I'm working on EDCO sample paper C, paper 1, question 1 part a ii.

Basically, the questions, about complex numbers, says to express something in 'rectangular form'. The book I use is Active Maths, and for the life of me I can't find one mention of it in that book. Does anybody know if it was left out of the book? Is rectangular form even on the leaving cert course? Cheers.

TheBody

Smiley Laura wrote: »

Ok so I'm working on EDCO sample paper C, paper 1, question 1 part a ii.

Basically, the questions, about complex numbers, says to express something in 'rectangular form'. The book I use is Active Maths, and for the life of me I can't find one mention of it in that book. Does anybody know if it was left out of the book? Is rectangular form even on the leaving cert course? Cheers.

Rectangular form is a+bi.

Smiley Laura

TheBody wrote: »

Rectangular form is a+bi.

Yes thank you, I googled it to get, but I'm just wondering why it isn't in the book Or maybe it is and I can't find it. But thank you anyway!

TheBody

Smiley Laura wrote: »

Yes thank you, I googled it to get, but I'm just wondering why it isn't in the book Or maybe it is and I can't find it. But thank you anyway!

A lot of the new books had to be published at very short notice so perhaps it was an oversight. Anyway, good luck!!