OT Teaching Math from the 50's to Today

Seen it (or a variant) before, but as someone schooled in the 50's and

You won't find such things in the English Maths National Curriculum Syllabus and its required unless you can show good reason. For those who think it is can I suggest trying a higher GCSE paper:-

The mean mark for all the class is 60 The mean mark for the girls is 54 Work out the mean mark for the boys

So NO CALCULATOR, and not transgender, self identifying... ... perhaps it spoils the joke, but I feel the real issue is that kids see no need to learn such things. Now if "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" included similar challenges perhaps they might be interested...

Dave

That question becomes interesting, with how the teacher marks the ones who got an answer of

Not really. AIUI the questions are the same, the difference is the way the kids are taught.

When I was young, we were taught basic principles and figured questions out during the exam. Nowadays, kids are trained to do exams, they immediately recognise question types.

This morning, I started doing an A level math exam. I got the first two questions wrong with stupid, careless mistakes. Mistakes that exam training would have minimised.

That means exam training makes up for a lack of maths knowledge.

Kids todays are taught to recognise the question, identify where the marks are and to work towards those marks.

By contrast, in the olden days the student did the maths asked for and left it to the examiner to decide what the marks were.

I suspect Chinese schoolkids aren't taught to hunt out the marks but instead just answer the question as well as they can.

With a X. It's a long way from the answer 63.

( 63 * 20 + 54 * 10) ____________________ = 60 30

Happily eat humble pie if I'm wrong.

x = 180 - 108 =72

Although, you illustrate exactly why we get questions wrong. First rule, read the question.

Yes, I misread 20 girls and 10 boy to be the opposite :-( As you say 'read the question'.

I would say an examiner should still award marks if they got

We're not testing them on rounding.

No. Not as regards maths teaching.

In terms of general education, maybe.

I was taught that in 1980 for A-levels. Not only were the subjects well taught, we knew how to pick the questions out of all those on the paper and the order we should answer them to get maximum marks. So all of us would have passed if we just answered the questions willy-nilly. But this way we knew how to apply our knowledge to the best.

Being taught how to answer exam questions is nothing new.

My deliberately unstated implication , was they used a calculator, perhaps modern ones are immune from the old problem of someone dividing

Assuming you would have to show workings, how would this be marked by teacher. Suppose little Johnny used iteration rather than algebra. Make a stab of 65 and gets an answer A for the overall average Makes a stab of 75 and gets answer B the other side of the whole group average , but closer, suggesting something a bit higher than 70 and less than 75. Picks 72 , knowing and stating in his answer that calculators are out, and finds it is correct

As I have said before, in one of my A level maths papers, I got over maximum marks and a classmates got a better mark that I did. 1958, ISTR

Perhaps you haven't seen the art form which spotting marks has now become. There is almost no comparison.

When I was at school I hardly bothered with spotting marks at all. I later taught A-level maths and hardly mentioned mark spotting (other than to say to show workings), yet my students always got the top two grades. I taught them maths rather than exam technique.

But there are good and bad teachers and having a good teacher can make a large difference to how one does in an exam.

You say that - and that is what I used to tell the children.

Later, invigilating a CSE Physics Exam (Yes, long ago). I saw more than one answering the question:

"What unit is voltage measured in?"

write "Watts" - or Whats, maybe.

PA

The total for the boys and girls is 60* 30 =1800

The total for the girls is 54*20 = 1080

The total for the boys = 1800-1080= 720

Mean for boys = 720/ 10 = 72

That is how one of my pupils would be expected to answer it.

Clear working, logical steps, with explanation.

Well the exam is meant to be pencil and paper no calculator so any one who writes 71.9999 has most likely cheated.

Dave