Help with daughters homework (pt 2)

[ColinJ]

wrong, learning is a process that continues at home with the support of parents/adults with parental responsibility ( PC obblocks) . it is not something that should be done only by teachers between 8.30 and 3.30. there are a lot of teachers who understand things one way when there are lots of ways of getting the same result. you may have been able to explain the problem slightly differently to the teacher and your neice may have "got it" I had terrible trouble understanding triangle theorems at preGCSE ( old 3rd year secondary). i asked another maths teacher to explain and got a different explanation that made sense and it was easy after that. I asked my parents with a lot of maths and science but both of them never finished school formally so didn't have a clue. nature ,english, history yes - but sciences no chance.

eldest in in KS2 year and we are helping her with the mental maths in a way that she doesn't realise she is being helped. watching the darts and snooker is fun with this. shiopping is also great for this

I knew more (academically) than my parents by the time I was 11 so I never asked them for help with my homework. I asked my teachers in class when I didn't understand something and they never set me homework on subjects that they hadn't fully covered in class. If any pupil didn't understand something, the teacher would help them and that is what they are paid to do.

I agree that it is good for parents to help their children when they can, but let's face it - if you have to ask on a forum about how to do your child's homework, then you don't understand it any better than they do!

I think that searching for information online is an essential skill these days, and time would be better spent teaching your children to do that than doing their research for them. So, if I had a daughter and she asked me for help I would show her how to use Google to find help, and how to evaluate what results Google came up with. That's what I was trying to do with my niece, since I can't be on the end of a phone every time she is late with her homework or hasn't been paying attention in class. My sister was indignant that I wouldn't just dictate the answer over the phone, but I insisted on my niece understanding the problem and finding the answer herself. I phoned them back later and my niece read out the answer that she had come up with. The steps she had followed were correct, but she had made a mistake in the final calculation. I told her where she had gone wrong, and then explained the importance of checking her results, and went into some detail about how to do that.

I'm not suggesting that parents should not help their children - I'm saying that doing their work for them doesn't help them in the long run!

 

[subaqua]

^^^^ that clarifies it far better than the first post.

I still set out work calculations the same way i was taught for GCSE physics. makes checking work so much easier

 

[Red Light]

I knew more (academically) than my parents by the time I was 11 so I never asked them for help with my homework. I asked my teachers in class when I didn't understand something and they never set me homework on subjects that they hadn't fully covered in class.
<......>

I'm not suggesting that parents should not help their children - I'm saying that doing their work for them doesn't help them in the long run!

I agree with your last statement but homework should go a bit further than just reinforcing what they have learnt in class. It should also encourage them to take what they have learnt and extend it into new areas themselves so that they not only know something but also know how to apply that knowledge. Helping them on that voyage is a role that a parent can and should fulfill.

 

[sunnyjim]

I'm not a professional mathematician or teacher, but about 30% of my working life is spend doing maths, and If I were your daughter I'd argue that the question doesn't make sense. As YF says, understanding the question is the tricky bit. If you can't pose a question clearly and concisely , you're not going to learn to use maths effectively. Here it's the question setter/teacher who lacks mathematical competence, not the pupil.

Does it mean ' find c and n such that z=cy^n' which seems to be the interpretation others have read, but it doesn't say that.

I read it as ' given that y=4x^2 and z=8/x show that z=cy^n for all n and c where c>0.

There is one constraint (y=z^2/16 .. x is irrelevant) and 4 variables (y,z,n,c) , so the problem is insufficiently bounded. No wonder school leavers have trouble with maths.

The teacher said the pupil is a fool.

 

[marinyork]

It's not just about google. Even in 2012 it is harder than it should be for a child or parent to easily track down new information on-line in the format they'd like on certain maths topics that goes beyond the (extremely) limited school syllabus. Books less so and it is much easier to find books these days than any other era (discounting the library reduction). There is so much maths not written down in the format people would like and 'readily' accessible to them. One problem is (slightly) higher level books/websites uses the set of terminology that people who write the stuff are very familiar with but which children/parents/teachers (not the case in the past) don't know about. It doesn't take long to learn a lot of the terminology, but few people do. Searches on the internet are very fruitful in picking up books that your child can then learn from, but few people seem to do this.

One of the problems is perceptions. People generally seem to think there is far less 'maths' out there than they don't know about, it just being extremely 'hard' and beyond them. Really it is the other way around, there is far more maths out at the frontiers than they could possibly imagine in far more topics in greater variety than they are aware of and a lot of the stuff (not out at the frontiers) is very much easier than they think and could be mastered by a much higher % of the population (arguments range on this between about 30 and 80% of the population) than is at the moment. We don't have this in all other subjects. People don't see it beyond them to learn a bit about topics not covered in the extremely limited school history syllabus - say Cromwell or George IV.

Indices, surds and fractions are extremely useful to be able to use. The school syllabus does try and get this across, but since we are one of the worst countries in the developed world for post 16 maths, many simply move on from these topics and will never be able to master them.

 

[marinyork]

Does it mean ' find c and n such that z=cy^n' which seems to be the interpretation others have read, but it doesn't say that.

I read it as ' given that y=4x^2 and z=8/x show that z=cy^n for all n and c where c>0.

There is one constraint (y=z^2/16 .. x is irrelevant) and 4 variables (y,z,n,c) , so the problem is insufficiently bounded. No wonder school leavers have trouble with maths.

The teacher said the pupil is a fool.

I suspect the question is written like it is, because they wanted to make it harder by substituting in. Pupils tend to struggle a lot with this. In an attempt not to confuse too many people they've specified c>0, probably also so that marks aren't taken off when people don't specify in their working that you get x =±√(y/4) before subbing.

Show that means whatever people want it to mean.

 

[Norm]

[QUOTE 1680494, member: 1314"]The answer is fifteen pints of beer.[/quote]
And, just as Swindon is never the answer, fifteen pints of beer is nearly always the answer.

 

[marinyork]

[QUOTE 1680494, member: 1314"]

Principle, though, is that when doing the homework with the kids, they are shown how to do it - not to do it for them.

[/quote]

Because of our culture, maths is one of the hardest subjects to motivate people to do, I think the 'balance' point at helping people is very much further towards the what people would call 'doing' end of the scale in some cases and is very subtle. I think there is a very big problem of erecting mental mind blocks if you get it wrong. It is a very important principle to come back to it/sleep on something.

 

[postman]

Thats not hard.Girls in Leeds espesh' from Gipton,Seacroft,Belle Isle ,Miggy and finally Osmondthorpe can work out to the next farthing how much they are entitled to in benefit payments.Better than Osborne.Wonders they are.

 

[sunnyjim]

I suspect the question is written like it is, because they wanted to make it harder by substituting in. Pupils tend to struggle a lot with this. In an attempt not to confuse too many people they've specified c>0, probably also so that marks aren't taken off when people don't specify in their working that you get x =±√(y/4) before subbing.

Show that means whatever people want it to mean.

Well yes- I can see the point of that as an educational tool. I dismissed the 'x' variable as unnecessary pretty much without thinking about it, so probably lost the point of the question, and read 'c>0' as the only constraint for the newly introduced unknown variables c and n. I also read a meaning into the word 'show' which maybe wasn't what the question setter intended but I believed to have a conventional meaning in the context (like 'prove' 'find' 'evaluate' 'given' 'solve' - even 'QED'). A Dumpty-ist approach to words is OK in art & literature, but not maths, engineering, science or law.

Drifting into a mild rant..
We probably share concern that there is an unjustified fear of maths in the general populace. My view is that an important factor is the inability to pose problems in sufficiently precise terms for maths (or logic) to work or appear be relevant, and the criticism of the question reflects that. School and university teaching seems to always been dominated by pure mathematicians who probably couldn't find any other employment. Maths should be a consequence of other subjects, not one in it's own right.
If I was education minister, a school term maths term would begin with a questions like:
'If I roll down a hill on my bike and hit a brick in the road, how far will I fly over the handlebars and what is the force on my head?'
' When I get a car I want to lift it on a jack. how thick must the supports be?
'What is the payback time of a solar power system on my roof?'
All well within the scope of school maths, and the little blighters would learn without even realising they had done it.
A day of mountain biking would be a good start for understanding calculus.

 

[sunnyjim]

Thats not hard.Girls in Leeds espesh' from Gipton,Seacroft,Belle Isle ,Miggy and finally Osmondthorpe can work out to the next farthing how much they are entitled to in benefit payments.Better than Osborne.Wonders they are.

And their boyfriends can do 301-(2*19)-5 in their heads in about 5 milliseconds after 10 pints. Whatever the problem is, it's not stupidity.

 

[subaqua]

And their boyfriends can do 301-(2*19)-5 in their heads in about 5 milliseconds after 10 pints. Whatever the problem is, it's not stupidity.

see my 1st reply to Colin . my 1st year in Tech college most of the calss said they couldn't do maths. till the lecturer used applied maths to demonstarte they could.

change from a tenner for 4 pints 3horts and packet of crisps at the student union - 10 seconds all of us had the answer. he then moved onto snooker, darts , and best of all when some lads said they couldn't do ratios when we were covering Current and Voltage transformers he used the betting slip example and got them to realise the odds were ratios.

its nothing to do with stupidity just application.

 

[subaqua]

Well yes- I can see the point of that as an educational tool. I dismissed the 'x' variable as unnecessary pretty much without thinking about it, so probably lost the point of the question, and read 'c>0' as the only constraint for the newly introduced unknown variables c and n. I also read a meaning into the word 'show' which maybe wasn't what the question setter intended but I believed to have a conventional meaning in the context (like 'prove' 'find' 'evaluate' 'given' 'solve' - even 'QED'). A Dumpty-ist approach to words is OK in art & literature, but not maths, engineering, science or law.

Drifting into a mild rant..
We probably share concern that there is an unjustified fear of maths in the general populace. My view is that an important factor is the inability to pose problems in sufficiently precise terms for maths (or logic) to work or appear be relevant, and the criticism of the question reflects that. School and university teaching seems to always been dominated by pure mathematicians who probably couldn't find any other employment. Maths should be a consequence of other subjects, not one in it's own right.
If I was education minister, a school term maths term would begin with a questions like:
'If I roll down a hill on my bike and hit a brick in the road, how far will I fly over the handlebars and what is the force on my head?'
' When I get a car I want to lift it on a jack. how thick must the supports be?
'What is the payback time of a solar power system on my roof?'
All well within the scope of school maths, and the little blighters would learn without even realising they had done it.
A day of mountain biking would be a good start for understanding calculus.

all covered in Physics - my physics teacher Mr Fellowes ( JAF) was also one of the school maths teachers many years previous. he taught me a lot of useful stuff. including the triangle theorems.

 

[marinyork]

Well yes- I can see the point of that as an educational tool. I dismissed the 'x' variable as unnecessary pretty much without thinking about it, so probably lost the point of the question, and read 'c>0' as the only constraint for the newly introduced unknown variables c and n. I also read a meaning into the word 'show' which maybe wasn't what the question setter intended but I believed to have a conventional meaning in the context (like 'prove' 'find' 'evaluate' 'given' 'solve' - even 'QED'). A Dumpty-ist approach to words is
OK in art & literature, but not maths, engineering, science or law.

It's traditional at whatever level of maths to have mistakes in questions, even exam questions. It is often joked about. There are also well known sayings like 'never write your own examples/questions'. This simply reflects being a bit lazy and having other things to think about. Show really does mean whatever it is said to mean - I've frequently seen definitions for it in a syllabus or the front of an exam paper. Why are people lazy? I think a lot of it stems from the subject. There are two popular themes - that they have gone to some kind of 'exclusive' university and had to learn xyz hard stuff so someone else can work it out for themselves (it 'never did me any harm' as I've frequently heard) or that they had to self teach themselves. Given how society is so obsessed with instant gratification, I can sort of see their point of view, but I think we need to get away from this, however tempting it is from a personal cantankerous viewpoint.

Drifting into a mild rant..
We probably share concern that there is an unjustified fear of maths in the general populace. My view is that an important factor is the inability to pose problems in sufficiently precise terms for maths (or logic) to work or appear be relevant, and the criticism of the question reflects that. School and university teaching seems to always been dominated by pure mathematicians who probably couldn't find any other employment. Maths should be a consequence of other subjects, not one in it's own right.
If I was education minister, a school term maths term would begin with a questions like:
'If I roll down a hill on my bike and hit a brick in the road, how far will I fly over the handlebars and what is the force on my head?'
' When I get a car I want to lift it on a jack. how thick must the supports be?
'What is the payback time of a solar power system on my roof?'
All well within the scope of school maths, and the little blighters would learn without even realising they had done it.
A day of mountain biking would be a good start for understanding calculus.

I don't really agree with the label pure maths, but that is a topic in it's own right. We have too much of a cult of 'expertology' in this country where people focus on narrow names of subjects rather than the actual content of the thing.

The problem is that England and Wales at least have one of the lowest %s of people doing Maths post 16 (at any level, let alone 'higher' level) in developed countries - Scotland isn't much better. This leads to cyclical patterns that people comment about often such as lecturers/teachers of xyz haven't done/less confident with topics uvw which then goes onto the next generation. The media is made up of people who haven't done much/any maths/science post 16 so that's another trend. Same with parents. So I often say that we might as well get rid of Maths for a lot of 14-16 year olds or major revamp or the other option of being more similar to other countries (given society's attitude at large this is probably the hardest).

The other thing is that aside from our deeply unhealthy instant gratification culture we are a nation of 'luvvies' as has been said famously. Maths and engineering has an incredibly low status in this country compared to other leading nations. The problem is you can never discuss this properly because even the more intelligent contributors will start start quoting names like Newton and Brunel rather than focussing on the whole picture today (rather than the top end).

Other countries get around the 'maths' problem, culture aside, either by other methods or simply telling them they have to do it.

 

[sunnyjim]

Without getting hung up on semantics, the point was that the way the question is posed influences the perceived mathematical difficulty (hence attractiveness of related future professions). There has to be a message for educationalists there. If 'cantankerous was aimed at me I apologise if it came over that way.
How to get more respect for maths & engineering in this country (entire old europe/usa in fact) I don't know. People with degrees in media studies starving in the streets would be a start.