Post graduate diploma for maths teachers UL FREE!

evolving_doors

rainbowtrout wrote: »

No, I was giving my reaction to the exam paper that was posted on this forum. Some of the measurements were imperial rather than metric. Some of the comments were that the questions were very difficult, but personally I thought some of them weren't that far off HL LC maths.

The introductory stuff on the course might be of that level, but certainly it should get more difficult, otherwise it wouldn't be worthy of a third level qualification in my opinion.

I know of someone who did the part time in DIT and thought that was easier than the course content/exams than the UL one (but that's only one opinion and that person was doing a part time degree over 6 odd years so had less pressure).

In essence it's for 'out of field' maths teachers so it's taking an assumed knowledge of LC hons as a starting pt with maybe a smidgen of university maths.

I would think that if you get through the course and your in the interview chair you'd be grand fielding any questions, also you've been given the green light by the teaching council which is another tick box. There is a fair bit of pedagogy content specifically related to project maths and secondary school students which is good too. Although I don;t know would you be on a par going up against someone with a maths degree and the 'hdip'.

Essentially I don't think it is targetted the people it was meant to target at all... namely the 'out of field' teachers who have been teaching maths for yonks 'unqualified', they're happy where they are and probably have permanent positions and know they'll get the LC classes next year without question next year. This was the nub of the whole bruhaha about ten years ago with the big "only 17% of student doing honours maths... unqualified maths teachers" headlines. I reckon there's a lot more fully qualified maths grads that have gone into teaching now than there were before.

Even after doing the course I'd still consider a maths degree at some stage down the line... but for the moment this'll have to do (cos I'm broke :(and it's free:))

As an aside does anyone know what happened those unemployed engineers that were looking to take our jobs when the recession hit. It was like a request for info thread every week at one stage (getting their qualifications assessed for maths etc). I know of one that went into teaching but now that things have picked up he's gone like a flash back to 'the real world' of engineering.... and money:mad:

patriciaf6

Is there any reason a qualified maths teacher would complete this free course to upskill?

evolving_doors

patriciaf6 wrote: »

Is there any reason a qualified maths teacher would complete this free course to upskill?

Career wise... NO!
Although if they've completely missed project maths stuff (return from abroad maybe!) then the workshops might be useful.
No harm in practicing though if its been a while in college.. brain is a muscle and all that.

Jippo

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Anyhow... hang in folks.. algebra next... just rearranging a bunch of x's and y's!

Now I remember what it feels like to be a student in class.

I hope you are joking here and don't teach algebra like that!:)

evolving_doors

Jippo wrote: »

I hope you are joking here and don't teach algebra like that!:)

no totally serious... I do a ten minute crash course for 1st yrs... bunch of x's and y's lads.. keep em all together... bring something over equals, change the sign, out pops yer answer...
exercises/h.wrk can be done on wolfram so throw it into that for next few weeks. gluck and thanks.
Bell rings
Round of applause.
Read me Irish Times in class for next few weeks. 3 months holidays, drive taxi , go on strike .
OXO

Beaulieu

Well how did everyone do last Saturday in Statistics & Geometry?