Dispatches programme about children learning maths

[ItNeverRainsBut]

Anyone watch this Dispatches programme on Channel 4 last night?
The Kids Don't Count

Quite shocking that when they gave the teachers the test aimed at 11-year-olds, they scored and average 45%!

now i'm confused, oh well. at least i have a calculator

agree with Riven, it is poor teaching all the way through that leads to this situation. The only solution is for the teachers to be given more training and to improve the level of the teachers' knowledge so that they can comfortably explain the concepts to the next batch of students. Also have some of the questions or marking been dumbed down, so that it appears that some students are doing well, when they may not have really mastered the concepts?

exactly coldtits, thats all division is asking you how many bits of something do you get.

would be cross if I was only given such a small slice though.

"Megapixels - 4. If you divide something into quarters, then you have 4 of them"

Careful of terminology. She didn't ask you to divide-by-4. She asked you to divide-into-quarter-shaped-pieces.

I truly think we have it wrong at primary level. You need a specialist to teach maths, science, languages, and probably things like music. The rest you can do as a generalist - but those ones you really need someone who understands the subject intuitively, and can see where people are getting confused and crucially explain it in different words.

So many times in maths I have explained something in different words to have the other person say "well why didn't they say that ?!" Often things aren't hard - the hard bit it explaining it in a way that makes sense.

And the huge problem with maths is once you have lost the thread anything after that point doesn't make sense either - and then you get the idea that is is too hard, and you are not capable of understanding it. You really really really have to check understanding all the way and stop and go back as soon as you get lost. And that is what is not done at school. And is almost impossible in large groups too.

If you divide a pizza into 2, you get 2 pieces of pizza. If you divide 1/3 of a pizza into 2, you also get 2 pieces of pizza. This doesn't tell you that much, you want to be able to compare how much of the original whole pizza you are left with after dividing an amount by 2, so that you can make a comparison as to which piece of pizza is the largest.

So if you divide 1/4 of a pizza into 2, then each piece will be 1/2 of 1/4 of the whole pizza i.e. it will be 1/2 x 1/4 of the whole pizza i.e. it will be 1/8 of the whole pizza.

The more difficult problem was "what is 1/4 divided by 1/2?" and the answer to that is 1/2

i was getting half and quarters mixed up. argh

anyone else getting hungry?

I just tried the test and I am not surprised that I am truly terrible. I can do simple mental maths, but when it comes to formulais kinds of things, my brain cells just start leaping somersaults.

Where do I go from here?

you need to get a pen and paper and write it out, do it step by step - make sure you understand what you have done.

And you should get there. It really is often a matter of practice and confidence.

I give up.

just to beat it to death, one final way of looking at the problem of 1/4 divided by 1/2 is the following :

8 divided by 2 is the same as saying how many twos does it take to make 8 which is the same as saying what number do you have to multiply 2 by to get 8, and the answer is 4 (i.e. 8 = 2 x 4)

1/4 divided by 1/2 is the same as saying how many halves does it take to make 1/4 which is the same as saying what number do you have to multiply 1/2 by to get 1/4, and the answer is 1/2 (i.e. 1/4 = 1/2 x 1/2)

coldtits - do you see the way claig explained it in lots of different ways - one of which probably makes sense to you.

It is often just a case of decoding it in a way that makes sense and then putting it back together to work out the answer.

But you really have to start with a can do rather than a can't do attitude. The believing you can't do it is a huge block to get past.

LaTrucha: formulae are supposed to help, not hinder!

Look at the example above where coldtits is getting confused by megapixel's example. The problem is that two people are reading the English in different ways - formulae are only a 'shorthand' way of writing this stuff down in an unambiguous manner. In most Maths it never really gets more complicated than add / subtract / multiply / divide / equals.
As everyone keeps saying, Maths builds on previous knowledge. Perhaps you missed out on some topic early on and, because you didn't have this foundation, things after that seem difficult. Try going to an adult-learner class; it might click this time round.

I love the way that my DS is taught Maths. He has a fantastic grasp of things like place value which, TBH, I find lacking in a lot of people of my generation (I was in the last cohort to do O levels), and his mental maths is astonishing to me. I was good at Maths (I have an A at A level) but I rely very much on using 'tools', whereas he has a much more instinctive understanding of number pattern IYSWIM. It might be that's he's just that way inclined (DH is much better than I), but clearly it is being nurtured in him.

I do remember the thread that Feenie refers to with the trainee and the Maths test, and I was too. If primary Maths isn't to be taught by specialists, then a high level of proficiency does need to be a requirement of entry to primary teaching I think. Which is sad if you have all the things you need in other areas but not that one, but really, it's such an important part of the job, it must be seen as essential.

meant to say earlier 1/2 divided by 4 is 1/8.

1/2 divided by a 1/4 is the same as asking how many times will 1/4 fit in the the 1/2?

Therefore the answer is 2 times.

Coldtits, don't give up!

It is difficult trying to explain on here, where we only have the alphabet and a few symbols to use. If we could do it with physical objects (like he was doing on the programme last night) then it would be easier.

Do we really need specialist teachers in maths though? The programme seemed to be arguing that this problem - children finishing primary school way behind in maths - is relatively recent in origin. Now I know that Dispatches isn't fabulous journalism but I do get the impression that my parents' generation did better at things like arithmetic and spelling than my generation, and they were not taught by specialist teachers.

I don't recall being taught the same things as is taught in current year 6. I am sure that Year 6 work (in our school at least) is the same as i did in first year of secondary. But o-levels were distinctly more challenging to todays gcse maths.

So, I think the problem lies with the foundations being laid down in Primary school.

In class I see 'this week we are doing decimals' then two weeks later the topic moves onto fractions, whether or not the majority of the class have got the hang of decimals. Then apart from some test revision (which doesnt make sense if you didn't understand it in the first place) you don't see that topic again til next year. So you get a whole class lurching from topic to topic without gaining a proper understanding of any of them. Because of the way the school handle the national curriculum children are just not getting the basics.

Maths is about stepping stones. If you don't get the hang of one stage, it is pointless going on to the next.

can't remember much about primary school maths. but in secindary school all we did were those 'SMP' books. little books to basically teach yourself maths. you complete one, then go to the front of the class and get the answer book. mark your work yourself. then get the next book.

for 5 years

i got a B

OhYouBadBadKitten, that is exactly what the children in the programme said. They said that the teachers jump from one topic to another, and the children never get time to fully learn any topic.

OH CLAIG! I get it!

Seriously coldtits? Have we got to eureka?