What is project Maths?
What is project Maths ?
Project maths is being introduced to increase the numbers taking higher maths at Leaving cert. The project maths proponents “aims to provide for an enhanced student learning experience and greater levels of achievement for all. Much greater emphasis will be placed on student understanding of mathematical concepts, with increased use of contexts and applications that will enable students to relate mathematics to everyday experience”.
The reality is very different!
There are 24 schools and about 3000 students Schools trialling Project maths ,these students will sit their leaving cert Project maths in June 2010 the most important maths exam of their lives with no text books ,no past papers,no marking schemes .
Their teachers are frantically trying to get a course covered when the syllabus is still not finalised .
The project maths schools sat a trial leaving cert paper 2 on October 21st 2009,the results were promised before Christmas 2009 .As with all things undertaken by the project maths committee the results were delayed .The projects maths schools finally received the results of the trial paper 2 exam on the 10th of February 2010 nearly 2 months later than expected. To date many students in the project maths schools have not received their results .
My daughter got her results and they were bad,(grade D) she is so upset, she is only doing pass level and requires a grade B to do Science in college and we have been unable to get help for this subject as it is new and there are no pass papers or books to help… she has just given up.
Hi
We have replied to your email address .But the parents of students should be contacting the minister of education to highlight the situation as it is just not fair that they have to compete with students who have over 15 years of past papers,marking schemes and textbooks.
On the front page :
>The argument is fundamentally flawed for the following reasons:
>
> (i) Dropping the standard will make us the laughting stock of the maths >world
laughting is misspelled.
your comment is noted
In the past, Maths teachers were comprised of
a)People with Honours Maths degrees
b)People with a Sciency subject, most commonly the least mathematical subject: Biology
Around 10 years ago, the People with Honours Maths degrees wanted to be a researcher or lecturer and not a 2nd level teacher as it is seen as more enforcing discipline than teaching. Plus at least a mid 2H1 was needed to become a teacher. So the many potentially good teachers were not entering in the HDip in Ed. and Biology graduates filled the void.
So the majority of people studying the Maths HDip were Biology students, all of which would unfortunately never will be able to teach LCH Maths.
The Dept of Education’s solution:
Let the colleges offer a course teaching Pass Mathematics, yet call it an Honours course so undergraduates would not snuff at it, and call it the perfect course for to become a Maths (read: core subject) teacher:
MATHEMATICAL STUDIES:
http://mathsci.ucd.ie/sms/prospective/ba_maths_studies.html
http://admissions.nuim.ie/subjects/arts_mathematical-studies.shtml
http://www.ucc.ie/en/CollegesandDepartments/ArtsCelticStudiesandSocialSciences/StudyingArtsatUCC/SubjectsonofferthroughCK101/MathematicalStudies/
Today, recently graduated Maths teachers are comprised of
a)People with Mathematical Studies degrees
b)People with a Sciency subject, most commonly the least mathematical subject: Biology
RECENTLY GRADUATED MATHS TEACHERS ARE SIMPLY NOT ABLE TO TEACH MATHEMATICS TO LEAVING CERT HIGHER LEVEL.
The Dept of Education’s solution:
Project Maths
I did Project Maths this year for the Lcert. I got a B2(at ordinary level), I did Higer Level up until Junior Cert, I know if I did the Paper 2 everyone else did I would have got an A1. I am very good at Maths but I did not want to do Higher Level for Lcert because it is supposed to be extremely difficult and i didn’t want my other subjects to suffer. The Project maths paper 2 was extremely difficult however I think that I would have done worse If I hadf not done Higher up until Jcert, other students who did Ordinary level for Jcert are at a real disadvantage. The paper is unfair, we already had a bad teacher, on top of that we had no text books ,no past papers and no marking schemes. I hope this doesn’t cost me a place
Thank you for your comment .But project maths is probably the worst thing that has happende to LC maths since the foundation of the state.
It will be dropped as a method of teaching after a few years.
project maths is a failure i could almost curse those that introduced this method.I hate maths already as it it talkless of introducing this appalling system
If at the end of the day all LCH maths students get 25 bonus points the points for most subjects will increase .