Projects

[Alouiseg]

It seems to me that "projects" are being used by schools under the guise of "independent learning" to avoid teaching the pupils properly and letting the onus fall onto parents and/or plagiarism.

My year 7 son was recently set an independent learning task about Non Decimal Number Systems. How on earth can a child independently research that, then come up with their own without any formal teaching? My husband luckily could help him after several hours of hand wringing and googling by me. We had no text book just a suggestion that the internet was to be used with no direction as to which sites would be appropriate or relevant. This is a big ask for an 11 year old and i am beginning to think that all these independent tasks have been set by the school to get the parents used to chipping in for coursework at gcse level.

The pupils are not being taught they are being sent home to Mum and Dad to cover a curriculum that we have no idea about the structure or content of.

Every project has resulted in huge amounts of help from us as parents and frankly i've had enough. Every evening, holiday and weekend is doomed by the spectre of homework.

Somebody give me a perspective on this as i have fired off a stinging email to the head of year.

It has nothing to do with coursework as that is now all controlled in the classroom. Besides, parents were never meant to help with coursework.

I cannot defend this type of homework. It seems that researching non-decimal number systems can be done very quickly and I can't really see how it lends itself to a full-blown project.

However, creative tasks are useful in all subjects, but obviously they should not be overused. Ideally, the teachers should get together and make sure they don't all give creative tasks at the same time.

Most important of all, you should not be doing your child's homework. That neither helps DS nor the teacher. The whole point of this type of homework is for the teacher to assess your DS's understanding of the topic, not yours. I would also be concerned that your dismissal of the topic could be transmitted to your DS and negatively affect his attitude to the subject and teacher.

My Dd did this as a project in Yr7 as well however she was given tips and suggestions. Dd's Maths teacher set a total of 4 projects over the course of yr7 some where completely maths based eg a survey/statistic type one others were to write about a famous mathematcians. I saw these projects more of an enrichment and a way of showing Yr7 that maths isn't just about doing sums in class but has an effect on every day life as well.

I quite agree that we shouldn't be doing the homework but NDNS are not easily researched!

Binary, Octal, Hexadec, they are quite something when we all just take for granted our decimal system.

Coursework is very definitely NOT controlled in the classroom.

From the next academic year, all coursework will be done in class, supervised by the teacher. Science moved over to this system 3 years ago, with all subjects changing by next year.

If your child is in Year 7, they will not be doing unsupervised coursework.

From next year all coursework is becoming controlled assessments.

I like projects, although I am not a maths teacher. I always give guidance as to look for the information. I don't set them because I can't be bothered teaching.

Independent learning is important IMO

The teacher should give the student the marking criteria for a creative assignment, eg a mark for presentation, vocabulary, annotated diagrams, unique facts, quality of the explanation etc. It saves getting just a page from Wikipedia printed out.

Yes, and I would direct the pupil to specific websites, or get the school librarian to lay out specific books.

Well I've just googled it and come up with loads of stuff, and I'm not remotely mathmatical. In fact I didn't know what it was 10 minutes ago (which is why I googled it - didn't want to show my ignorance!)and now I do.

Perhaps a more useful approach would be to admi to the Maths teacher that DS is struggling with homework?

Coming up with "loads of stuff" from google is one thing but understanding it is completely another. My husband spent 2 hours teaching ds about binary as an example of the most basic NDNS. Our children don't need a lesson in how to google they need teaching.

Agree with Tanga, it took me less than 2 minutes to google and come up with a site that explained it perfectly clearly. Should be well within the scope of a Yr 7 pupil. Dd did lots of projects like this last year and it never occurred to us to help her.

It's not as if he is going to come up with porn sites by googling non-decimal number systems, is it?

I would let him spend say an hour selecting some suitable sites. Then if he really can't understand the information in any of them, read them and have a bit of a chat.

I really don't think teachers are setting this kind of work to make their own lives easier: ime this type of project is far harder and more time-cconsuming to mark than ordinary sums.

Of course pre-decimalisation every child learned such things in every day life. Base 12 and 20 for money, and base 16 for weight. And we could calculate in them!

With the project, I think the point is not so much collecting the information, as consolidating and making sense of it within an agreed framework. If that wasn't clear, then I think you have a very valid point, and suspect that the teacher isn't coping terribly well with the homework system that the school is using. So well worth challenging, even if you don't get much immediate joy from the head of year.

TBH, if it took your Y7 2 hours to understand the basics of binary, then you need to be talking to the Maths teacher adn ensuring that he's in the correct set, and getting the correct level of work - my Yr3 took 10 minutes and then worked out what 5 was in binary. Unless you're expecting too much depth for Y7?

I'm not a teacher (though I'm doing a maths degree atm with the aim of teaching yr5/6). I do think independent learning is important, certainly better than fill-in-the-blank worksheets, ugggh.

If I was a head teacher (I can dream!) I'd start off giving detailed guidelines for a project and as they got older gradually reduce it to prepare for coursework - as PP said it's about learning to consolidate, present etc. Very important skills especially as kids are now expected to research online - they need to filter out the rubbish as websites aren't usually checked like books.

At least the teacher will presumably mark the project and find out more about your DS through it. DH and I have a major GRRRRRR with DSDs' school, they're in yr7 and ALL their maths hw is done online. It's marked automatically and no working out is shown so all the teacher knows is what they got out of 20!

3m

Ok Cory and Tanga, even after my husband explained it to me it didn't sink in. Clearly the website you found was exceptional so if you could please answer the following binary sum without converting back to base ten.

11010101/100111

I've asked another parent how her child is coping with it and she has made a mock up of a newspaper!!!! I don't believe that answers the question that was set.

My suspicion is that they don't want the detail that we are going into and just want the children to come up with a basic code.

Awaiting the call from the school with interest.

Assignment is number systems

you must choose one of the following

1. Design your own number system using a different base from the decimal system. Show examples of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

1. Write a report of as many different number systems as you can. Show examples of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

1. Give a talk to the class using the interactive board about different number systems, with questions and calculations.

OUTCOMES. Pupils will be able to calculate in a system other than base 10.

Ok, I take your point. That does sound rather a lot for Yr 7.

But I'm still wondering why you as parents are so closely involved in this. Why can't your ds go back to his teacher and ask for clarification/explain that it is beyond him?

He will do, we've just had half term.

I'd been wondering why yr7 was asked to do this, now I realise my DSD was asked to do a similar thing - she told me she had to do 'mayan maths' - make up some maths problems in the mayan system. I asked what this meant and (as usual!!!) her response was "dunno"
But now I've been googling non-decimal systems I understand. The mayan system is quite simple

3m

I'm with you Alouiseg, I don't like this type of homework. It takes up too much time and will probably need help from the parents. Also I think the teacher should concentrate on more important topics. If the teacher wanted to introduce hexadecimal at that age, then they could spend 30 mins explaining it in class, and I think that would probably be sufficient. Good on you for complaining. I hope many other parents do the same, then maybe they will change this approach.

as for Mayan maths, don't get me started

I'm also a bit worried about some of the unfortunate kids who would struggle with this task and whose parents are unable to help them. It would be pretty humiliating to stand at the interactive white board with naff all to say. That would soon put you off school.

Well, that's the whole point of setting a task with options, so that kids who are less confident don't HAVE to stand at the interactive whiteboard. I think the problem here may be that you have very set ideas about what is to be produced (eg I don't see that the task requires the children to be able to calculate in Binary, which is the question you pose) whereas the point of the task is to let the child explore different numbering systems, follow their enthusiasms, use different skills.

The idea of explaining something to a class for 30 minutes is HILARIOUS, though - most adults can't concentrate for that long, never mind children.

I do like this sort of homework. It makes the students think. And it's far more meaningful than just a churn-out worksheet, fill in the answers to practise skills covered in class.

My boys have had project-style homeworks occasionally since about yr3 or 4. I am rarely called on to offer any assistance since about yr5.

"The idea of explaining something to a class for 30 minutes is HILARIOUS, though - most adults can't concentrate for that long, never mind children."

that's what they did when I was in year 7, but obviously things have changed.

I have just spoken to the Head of Maths who tells me that a code of One smiley face plus another smiley face equals a laughing face would be acceptable as long as they have taken at least 3 hours over it!!!!!!!!

I pointed out that the question was very definitely asking about NDNS and 14000 google entries were a hell of a lot to sift through.

Apparently he has been in a meeting with Edexcel who want independent learning for GCSE level which strikes me as ludicrous and back to the 70's wooly thinking. I would prefer my child to have good arithmetical skills at this point in time.

Ds will be the only child who has completed the question and answered it properly. Thanks to Dad who is currently speaking to several of his buddies all in finance all super maths minded who are telling him how that question should be answered and it isn't a bunch of smiley faces.

If you hadn't guessed i am incoherent with rage about this and am planning to see the head about the wording of the question and the expectations of the children.

Binary, octal, hexadec are all NDNS but they want bloody emoticons!

Tanga:

The point of the question clearly states to design a number system which DOES NOT use base 10 (the decimal system). How on earth can a child, post decimalisation, with no understanding of different number bases be expected to design a non decimal number system in code?

The first thing we teach our children is to read the question and understand what is required of them.