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Leaving Cert '11/'12 Off-Topic 2
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Dwellingdweller wrote: »Enjoy! It's really good, I used it to revise Physics (the dude has 3 degrees, engineering, compsci, pure maths... all from MIT.
) all this year. He's great at explaining stuff like.
Cheers! :cool:0 -
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Dwellingdweller wrote: »Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea! The thing I concern myself with though is - is it worth it? Economically like. But I suppose ya kinda have to prioritise quality of education too. I can see how it'd seem lazy too for a teacher just to play videos of stuff all the time :P But it kinda makes sense when you think about it, all that time teachers spend drawing stuff on whiteboards/blackboards is just removed from the equation with videos, saves so much time/energy.
Would your chem and bio classes do better than classes that do it the traditional way do you think?
I know with some teachers it wouldn't be laziness but for my maths teacher it definitely is, the woman doesn't understand things herself but that's for another day :pac: One thing that often annoys me with the videos is they'll have slightly different ways of explaining things, makes it a tiny bit off-putting
I couldn't really say about the last bit, there's only one chem class in the school and all the bio classes are quite similar. It does really help with understanding, though. I remember my chem teacher showing us a brilliant video to do with equilibrium, with just a guy using water and buckets to explain. Didn't understand the chapter before that, but seeing a simple, visual example like that really helped. 0 -
No matter how much maths teachers will argue that topics like geometry are used in everyday life, it's the basics like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division that we come into contact with most frequently. IMO, it's better to give children a good foundation with these rather than teaching them to rely on a calculator from an early age. I dunno about other primary schools either but I remember doing very basic algebra (is x+ 3 = 5 then what is x type stuff) in about 5th/6th class. We also did a bit of geometry, again just basic stuff like the area of a circle and whatnot.
I agree that a good foundation is vital, but surely it can be covered in less than eight years? And kids will use their calculators as soon as they start secondary school anyway. I always tried to avoid mine for calculations but we were actually encouraged to use them. That sounds good, I wish more primary schools did that! 0 -
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Exactly! Primary school maths is a joke, I'm fairly certain it's the reason we've got such a poor level of maths in this country! Iall I did in maths back then was race against the previously mentioned friend to see who could get through three or four pages of sums quicker. :P We were clearly under so much pressure with the complexity of the work. :rolleyes:
Hahahah :L always so sarcastic Togepi :P But yeah it definitely is, another thing is that in mainland Europe, all the kids do English from 4 years old with the end result being that their English is mega when they finish school, they're basically as fluent as us at it (except they sound like perfect Americans because they watch American tv, lolz). Now look here, you do Irish from when you're 4 in school, but very few people really know how to teach Irish, and most people end up hating it. It's also a really hard language which is totally impractical for the modern world. I think, teach kids German, or French, or (better yet!) Mandarin when they're young so they'll be fluent when they're 16/17, and they won't have to study. I swear to god. When we're in our 40s-50s, China's where people will be immigrating to. Probably when we're younger. But ya maths should be a def priority, I think for the JC it should just be Maths, English, and a language (maybe Irish if the Sinners are crying for it), and make kids focus like f**k on those subjects, forget about all the bull**** ones. But make the JC an actual decent exam and not a fu*king stew of irrelevant, out of context information! :LIMO, if your going for a maths/science course then the maths 25 bonus point rule should apply, if your going for an English based course then there could be a bonus for English, same if you wanted to do language course, have a bonus for the language subject their doing. But the thought of someone getting a course in lets say journalism because they get 25 free points for maths is just stupid IMO.
Hear hear
That's actually a class idea!I can kind of see what you're saying. They're never going to do that, but it could help some students I guess. I know I need time to think about concepts to fully understand them, which was why teaching myself worked so well for me. I think it's far easier to take an idea in if you can read over it several times, whereas it might just be said once by a teacher. For the last 2 years I sat in class with a textbook and really focused on understanding what I was doing, whereas if I was listening to the teacher I probably wouldn't have paid as much attention as I should have... I don't know, I think for maths repetition is really important, and in a class situation it isn't always possible to keep going over things until it sinks in for everyone, or the teacher might not explain it in a way that makes sense to everyone.
I know that the classroom situation just does NOT work for me for maths, because I always paid attention in applied maths class but none of it makes sense to me at all until I read over it myself. Maybe that's just me though.
I'm the exact same for Physics, as ya said you need time to go over that stuff and kinda play around with the idea in your head until you get it into a shape that you understand personally, that's why teaching doesn't really do it for me. What teachers are good for, IMHO: correcting tests, correcting tests, and... correcting tests. :P Obviously Applied Maths is a diff kettle of fish to Physics but I see what you're saying like0 -
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I never had a 6th class cause my teacher became the new principal and he thought he could handle it :L so we never had classExactly! Primary school maths is a joke, I'm fairly certain it's the reason we've got such a poor level of maths in this country! All I did in maths back then was race against the previously mentioned friend to see who could get through three or four pages of sums quicker. :P We were clearly under so much pressure with the complexity of the work. :rolleyes:
Some of us even did extra maths for a while to give us more of a challenge. There was still no algebra or anything like that. :cool:
Primary school maths was the most frustrating thing ever. Ugh being made wait til the rest of the class were finished, I really hate the way that some students are held back so that everyone is at the same level. There's absolutely no individualism in our education system.
Not to mention that my sixth class consisted of computers, PE and poker. I'm not exaggerating, our teacher was the principal and would spend maybe half the day in the classroom with us, if that. We did not do Irish once in sixth class.
And primary school is so darn slow, I think any child could have mastered simple algebra and differentiation and other stuff in primary school :O0 -
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Primary school maths was the most frustrating thing ever. Ugh being made wait til the rest of the class were finished, I really hate the way that some students are held back so that everyone is at the same level. There's absolutely no individualism in our education system.
Not to mention that my sixth class consisted of computers, PE and poker. I'm not exaggerating, our teacher was the principal and would spend maybe half the day in the classroom with us, if that. We did not do Irish once in sixth class.
Maybe when adults bítch about children not being disciplined they should look at the people in charge of the kids first, eh? :rolleyes:I know with some teachers it wouldn't be laziness but for my maths teacher it definitely is, the woman doesn't understand things herself but that's for another day One thing that often annoys me with the videos is they'll have slightly different ways of explaining things, makes it a tiny bit off-putting 
I couldn't really say about the last bit, there's only one chem class in the school and all the bio classes are quite similar. It does really help with understanding, though. I remember my chem teacher showing us a brilliant video to do with equilibrium, with just a guy using water and buckets to explain. Didn't understand the chapter before that, but seeing a simple, visual example like that really helped.
She doesn't undestand the things herself? Ah jaysus lad
Probably did arts! Don't mean that as an insult but I think only sci/eng students should be allowed to go for maths jobs. Having said that most maths teachers I've had would've been science graduates, I had one engineering graduate as a teacher and he's ok (but he can't control a class for shíte), but the science graduates were still crap teachers. Maybe if the teachers actually enjoyed what they did they'd be better at it? 
Yeah taking things back to basics helps so much. That's why I like Physics and science subjects, you can always explain the stuff in terms of simple building blocks. But yeah I agree with ya now, having a good teacher to give people a push in the right direction when studying something can be a great help! 0 -
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Historykitten wrote: »I never had a 6th class cause my teacher became the new principal and he thought he could handle it :L so we never had class
And primary school is so darn slow, I think any child could have mastered simple algebra and differentiation and other stuff in primary school :O
Damn right. There's a type of 'childism' that goes on sometimes where adults are all 'ah you're too young to learn that!' What b.s. :cool: Any child could learn that, they only seem like complicated concepts when you contrast them with basic ones, but if you contrasted basic differentiation with full differential equations, well it'd obviously seem simple! :L It's all relative.0 -
Historykitten wrote: »I never had a 6th class cause my teacher became the new principal and he thought he could handle it :L so we never had class
And primary school is so darn slow, I think any child could have mastered simple algebra and differentiation and other stuff in primary school :O
I wish I could've skipped a year or two of primary school. 0 -
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Me tooHistorykitten wrote: »I never had a 6th class cause my teacher became the new principal and he thought he could handle it :L so we never had class
And primary school is so darn slow, I think any child could have mastered simple algebra and differentiation and other stuff in primary school :O
I wish I could've skipped a year or two of primary school. I just wish they would make it more challenging 
like introduce basics of another language, teach Irish in a way that we could actually speak it coming out of the place teach us simple biz and economics etc like it wouldn't be that hard :O vote for me for future taoiseach :P I wanna introduce reforms :P 0 -
But that's the problem, diff is just introduced to you all of a slap with other things like integration all at once in leaving cert, if you were taught the basics in primary school it would be a walk in the park in lcDifferentiation in primary school? :O is it not hard to get most of them to listen to multiplication? I know a few students might be able to handle it, but if you look at the bigger picture most of these would come from stable backgrounds where education is a priority etc. Try to roll that out nationwide and it's not feasible. These children are only 12 at most, it's hard enough to try to get a 16 year old to understand differentiation. And if the primary school students don't understand multiplication and have a solid background in algebra, they won't understand differentiation. and children are well able, I'm so teaching my children extra maths when they're younger 0 -
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Differentiation in primary school? :O is it not hard to get most of them to listen to multiplication? I know a few students might be able to handle it, but if you look at the bigger picture most of these would come from stable backgrounds where education is a priority etc. Try to roll that out nationwide and it's not feasible. These children are only 12 at most, it's hard enough to try to get a 16 year old to understand differentiation. And if the primary school students don't understand multiplication and have a solid background in algebra, they won't understand differentiation.
Yeah that's true :P Still, I'm going to come out and put a big fat DISCLAIMER on all this by telling y'all that I'm just thinking out loud. :pac: I still don't see why kids aren't taught genuinely difficult things at primary school though, primary school is such a bloody doss, if they were taught a bit of work ethic there it'd stick with them. The reason it's hard to get a 16 year old to understand differentiation is usually because there's loads of other shít on their mind, like social shít and basically stuff that isn't really important in educational terms. Get all that stuff into their heads when they're young and it'll be way easier for them. 0 -
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I agree with ye with introducing diff at a younger age, but I think primary school is a bit too young. They're still developing and if you over load them with too much sure the poor things will burn out. That said I agree with them being pushed a little bit harder with the introduction of BASIC algebra in 5th/6th class. Emphasis on the basic. My own mams a primary school teacher, and now she wouldn't have the brightest of classes, and getting them to understand addition of tens and units is hard. Tbh it's the way your raised which has the biggest impact. It's sad because there's so many bright, able students who don't get the time to shine because of lack of support and motivation at home
Getting back to the differentiation, I said earlier I wouldn't agree with putting it in the junior cycle, but thinking about it I wouldn't put it in the current junior cycle. The child has too much going on with 10/11 subjects to study for. Maybe with the reform of the junior cycle and introduction of project maths we'll see a difference.0 -
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Absolutely true.Dwellingdweller wrote: »Definitely, adding and multiplying and all that stuff doesn't teach you anything.
Sure you it's not like you use it every day or anything! :pac:
How are you going to check your change in a shop, for example? Pull out a calculator every time?
Slight tangent actually, but I was in a house recently where someone needed the rough area of a room, he was going in to order carpet.
Room was ~ 10' x 8.5' ... HE HAD TO PULL OUT HIS PHONE AND USE THE CALCULATOR!!
(Btw, how are you going to learn algebra if you can't add / subtract / multiply / divide?)
We did basic algebra from about 4th class.That said I agree with them being pushed a little bit harder with the introduction of BASIC algebra in 5th/6th class. Emphasis on the basic.
One problem though is often that primary school classes are usually mixed ability and too big, and especially when it comes to maths.
Another ofc is that lots of kids have parents who go "oh, maths! always hated it! you poor thing, you!" and the kids internalise their attitudes and perpetuate the cycle.0 -
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