Syllabus development (2 Viewers)

[buchanan]

The syllabus will be changed by 2010 as announced at the 2005 MANSW Conference (Board of Studies, 2005).

This is happenning in the following phases in accordance with the Board of Studies Syllabus Development Handbook (Board of Studies, 2003) (http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/manuals/pdf_doc/syl_dev_handbook.pdf) :

• Syllabus review: evaluate, consult, research, recommend.
• Writing-brief development: write brief, consult, identify issues, revise brief.
• Syllabus development: draft; consult; address issues; report on meeting Board criteria; modify; to Curriculum Committee, then Board, then Minister; brief schools; distribute.
• Implementation

Timeline (Board of Studies, 2006):

Syllabus Review: Mar – Dec 2006
Writing Brief Development: Jan – Jul 2007
Syllabus Development: Aug 2007 – Nov 2008
Implementation: Probably from 2010

The Board of Studies is inviting submissions from individuals and associations in the current review of Stage 6 Mathematics:

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/stage-6-forum.html

Thursday 1st June, 2006
MANSW Office, Kent Rd, Eastwood
4.30pm Afternoon Tea
5pm - 7pm Discussion

Here's my submission (Last edited on May 29, 2006).

References

Board of Studies (2003). Syllabus Development Handbook

Board of Studies (2005). Review of Stage 6 Mathematics, BOS Bulletin, 14 (5), September, 2005

Board of Studies (2006). Review of Stage 6 Mathematics, BOS Bulletin, 15 (2), May, 2006

 

[buchanan]

The Board of Studies has commenced the first phase of a project to review Stage 6 Mathematics.

The first phase, Syllabus Review will review the full Stage 6 Mathematics provision, taking into account the needs of less able students as well as those who would undertake the higher-level calculus-based courses. It will also evaluate the current NSW Stage 6 Mathematics syllabuses and any implications of their revision, as well as establishing a plan for revision or development. The timeline below is proposed for the review and development of Stage 6 Mathematics courses.

A Board Curriculum Committee (BCC) has been formed for the project, in accordance with the guidelines in the Board’s Syllabus Development Handbook (www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/manuals/pdf_doc/syl_dev_handbook.pdf)

The review process will involve a range of strategies, and will include consultation with teachers, academics and organisations with an interest in Mathematics. The proposed strategies include:

• oral submissions from key organisations and individuals. These submissions provide an early opportunity for the Board to gauge perspectives on the current Stage 6 Mathematics curriculum

• a survey of schools to obtain feedback on the current Stage 6 Mathematics syllabuses, associated support documents, and Stage 6 Mathematics education in NSW generally

• written submissions from organisations and individuals on the current situation in Stage 6 Mathematics and/or any preferred direction to be taken in NSW. Respondents may choose to focus on particular aspects of Mathematics, the syllabuses, or general issues

• a Stage 6 Mathematics symposium (Term 3) intended to raise and explore key issues in the review and development of Stage 6 Mathematics syllabuses. Key educational organisations will be invited to nominate delegates, to include teachers, parents and academics.

At the conclusion of the Syllabus Review phase:

• Broad directions for the revision or development of Stage 6 Mathematics syllabuses will be presented to the Board for endorsement. The broad directions will guide the development of the Writing Briefs for the syllabuses.

• Feedback will be presented to the Board for further consideration and finalisation of the timeline for the project.

Steps in the syllabus development process:

Syllabus Review: Mar – Dec 2006
Writing Brief Development: Jan – Jul 2007
Syllabus Development: Aug 2007 – Nov 2008

Reference

Board of Studies, Review of Stage 6 Mathematics, BOS Bulletin, 15 (2), May 23, 2006

(http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/bulletins/pdf_doc/bbv15_2.pdf)

 

[buchanan]

I went to the forum and here are the notes I made at the forum.
___________________________________________________

Stage 6 Mathematics Syllabus Review
MANSW Preliminary Discussion Forum
Thursday 1st June, 2006
5pm-7pm
MANSW Office
Kent Rd, Eastwood

Written Submissions to MANSW due 5pm, 2 June, 2006

Stage 6 Mathematics Review
MANSW
PO Box 339
North Ryde 1670
mansw@math.nsw.edu.au
---------------------------------------------
Written Submissions to BOS due by 30 June, 2006

Attn: Ms Margaret Bigelow
Senior Project Officer Mathematics
Office of the Board of Studies
Curriculum Branch
PO Box 5300
Sydney NSw 2001
bigelow@boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au
----------------------------------------

* Revisit MIP idea
- a course built on Stage 5.1 course
- 8000 students not doing maths. Why? Issues?
- Is a course for 30000 students asking too much?

* Structure/Philosophy?
- Students to attempt highest level in maths

* Issue: - Shortage of staff? Qualified maths teachers that are capable of doing maths?

* BOS assurance
- All Stage 6 maths to be reviewed
- What works, what doesn't?

* Dropout from 2 Unit: Preliminary to HSC
- Why? 2 Unit students competing with Ext. 1 students. Is it a level playing field?

* Possibility of different suite of courses
- hierachy/structure?

* preserve challenge, rigour in "Extension" courses

* Maths course for every student if choosing to do maths

* Cater for students not planning to do tertiary maths courses
* Parallel course - one with technology/one similar to current ones?

* Current courses (calculus based) written on Years 7-10 courses of the day (1982)
- junior courses have moved on
- senior courses haven't

* Technology:
- Full range of different views
- Optional use in General Maths
- Are those not using them disadvantaged?
- Is the disadvantage not just in exams, but also in learning experiences?
- In years to come, price for technology becomes cheaper/more accessible/less of an equity issue in future?
- percieved disadvantage based on "gut feeling"?
- Should this be investigated or researched?
- Are universities using graphics calculators or computers? Answer: computers.

* in years to come, instead of graphics calculators, we might have hand held computers instead

* Some things could be approached to get deeper understanding with graphics calculators/technology

* What is maths?
- What do we want students to understand?
- do we need all this algebra manipulation?
- modelling problem using technology rather than a lot of algebraic manipulation?
- students need to have fundamental skills, but still have to understand algebraic manipulation - need balance
- non-calculator component in exams?

* What concepts/skills do we want students to have at exit?
- beyond procedural knowledge?
- rich tasks?
- need to address how we are going to assess/specimen papers before the start of the HSC course

* numbers of courses?
- ext. 1 $ ext. 2 "good" pure maths courses - maintain this level?
- What sort of maths (concepts/topics/ideas) do we want students to learn in Yrs 11,12?
- What's useful maths? Lower end maths courses?

* Topics to have?
- statistics? (What statistics?)
- Statistics in context? Financial/psychology?
- Using statistics? - or understanding of statistics/proving things in statistics?

* Geometry
- keep it?/do more?/do less?/get rid of it altogether?
- use dynamic software packages?

* Overlap of mathematics (2 Unit) and new Stage 5.3 course
- new to address/review "new" exit points from Stage 5 maths courses
- how many students get to end of Stage 5.3 course?

* Add topics matrices and vectors/hypothesis testing

* Electives in courses?
- giving the teachers choices?
- Ext. 2 english - major project - issues with this? Plagarism?
- Ext. 2 maths a lot more work than other courses? Difficulty level?
- Should Ext. 2 students do the 2 unit exam?
- Should Ext. 1 students sit a separate exam and 2 Unit a different exam?

* Create system to cater for all levels of students?

* Number of courses - some schools can only "support" 4 courses.
- equivalent 3 unit course to be stand alone?/encompassing 2 unit?
- Should General maths be beefed up?
- Room to move if students take on 3 unit and then move to another course?
- don't want to overcrowd syllabus so that need to go faster to get through the course
- start ext. 2 in yr 11?/structure new courses to allow for this?/would this lock them in too early?
- IB course levels?
- Course to cater for students not doing calculus based courses?
- Discrete maths course?/ Matrices/vectors
- Calculus course/current Ext. course on top of this?
- Who knows what students can do and capable of doing in maths?
- not service industry
- number theory - why not being treated?
- proof base - as a course?
- need to address - 2 unit students not doing course - 2 unit only students needs are not being met?
- While Ext. students do enjoy 2 unit course?

* Current General course - split it into a beefed up course for some and a lower level for others.

* 2 unit course to have similar to current one? - pure strand?
- parallel 2 unit course - no Geometry
- add some statistics
- remove calculus
- 2 unit General maths - beefed down?/1 unit lower level maths course/fundamentals of maths - for 5.1 background

* have common exam/ common elements/ common questions?
- Advanced/Standard English model?

* Add things to General maths?
- What do we want to keep? Modelling with technology?
- Include gambling?
- Add to General maths things not relating to 5.2?
- Add the concept of calculus/rates of change
- More statistics/ethics - rights/wrongs
- Financial section - check definitions for formulas
- Stock market/shares

* Ext. 2 topics
- Should conics be deleted?
- Bring in linear algebra/vectors - Boolean algebra - Vectors and matrices?
- More applications/less dynamics?
- Manageable content - not overcrowded?
- Students should know it well, rather than rushing through - give students time to understand - bring things together - connect things?
- keep integration
- volumes
- curve sketching (without calculus)
- complex numbers - include simple work in Ext. 1?

* Mathematics (2 unit) - not to be called 2 Unit maths?
- Need to have time for students to have fun - we need to have fun lessons?
- less time allocated to maths?/ Yet trying to get through a lot of content? (especially in junior courses)

* SC exam meaningful?
- SC test - credential SC - maths SC test?
- school based credential?
- new syllabus - describe prerequisites?
- assumed knowledge/guidelines or had covered outcomes

* Communicating to years 9/10 (parents and students) about possible pathways in Years 11/12

* Other issues?
- Can students do 2 2 unit courses? Maths 1/Maths 2?
- No overlap between the 2 2 unit courses - choose 1 or other or both?
- Some maths compulsory? - Breadth of study requirements?
- No preliminary course?
- Better sequencing of topics
- Pedagogy -teaching strategies - suggestions - more content/working mathematically - concepts/strategies - process strand embedded in syllabus?
- teaching ideas in syllabus - or don't have it in the syllabus? or have it in a support document?

 

[buchanan]

Here's 2 more submissions:

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/MANSW-Submission.pdf

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/Oral-Submissions.pdf

 

[buchanan]

Masters the idiot

Geoff Masters is such an idiot. He doesn't know what he is talking about. He published material last Thursday wherein he claimed there is no basis upon which to claim superiority of 4 unit maths over courses in other states. I have shown my 4 unit maths website to teachers in other states and they have all conceded that 4 unit maths is the best in Australia!

Earlier in the year, Gordon Stanley and George Cooney published material completely annihilating Geoff Master's idea for a national curriculum.

In 1998, Kaye Stacey, John Dowsey, Barry McCrae and Max Stephens reviewed the senior secondary mathematics curriculum, comparing all the syllabuses across Australia, and some also overseas. They found that 4 unit maths is the best in Australia - particulary in respect to rigour and proofs.

This was again confirmed when last year, Frank Barrington and Peter Brown did a comparison of Year 12 pre-tertiary mathematics in Australia. They also found that 4 unit maths is the best in Australia.

In 1991, ACER (headed by Masters) contributed to the most ridiculous and most useless document I have ever seen about maths, called A National Statement on Mathematics for Australian Schools. And Masters says the Federal Government investigation into what is being taught will provide a basis for what should be taught and how to teach it. Well, if it's anything like the National Statement, I'd be bold enough to say it'd provide a basis for what shouldn't be taught and how not to teach it!

 

[buchanan]

The sums of all fears: HSC students deserting maths

Sydney Morning Herald, August 22, 2006 page 6:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-sums-of-all-fears-hsc-students-deserting-maths/2006/08/21/1156012474017.html

<!--articleTools Top--><BYLINE>Anna Patty Education Editor</BYLINE>

AN EASIER mathematics course for HSC students may be introduced to arrest falling enrolments in the subject, in the biggest overhaul of the syllabus for more than 20 years.

Maths educators debated the merits of the present syllabus at the weekend, with traditionalists warning against following postmodernist trends and changing the two-, three- and four-unit calculus courses.

However, there was agreement that general mathematics, which has no calculus, was still too hard for weaker students and another choice was needed.

The NSW Department of Education's chief education officer, Peter Gould, told the symposium in Sydney of a significant drop since 2001 in the number of students studying maths in years 11 and 12. He said an increasing number of students were not studying the subject at all.

Mr Gould said fewer than 30,000 students studied the general mathematics course and a new alternative maths subject was needed to meet the diverse needs of more than half the students who sat the HSC.

The president of the Board of Studies NSW, Gordon Stanley, said the symposium had canvassed a range of views, which would be considered in a consultation process to run until the end of the year.

He said the harder calculus courses - of two, three and four units - were highly regarded and catered well for more able students, but more was needed to cater for weaker students. "Maybe we need a different course for those with vocational interest," he said.

General mathematics was first set in 2001 and replaced the so-called "vegie" courses of maths in practice and maths in society, which were dropped in an overhaul of the HSC in 2000.

"We have to be cautious about not going back to where we've come from," Professor Stanley said.

The mathematics master at Sydney Grammar School, Bill Pender, recommended the introduction of a second course, without calculus, and possibly a separate one-unit year 12 statistics course.

"If we start putting other things like statistics into the calculus course, it will lose its value," he said. "It would be sad to see calculus become merely a calculus appreciation course."

The mathematics co-ordinator at PLC Sydney, Stuart Palmer, said: "All the current courses need a thorough revision in the light of 25 years of societal and educational change, including advances in technology."

The president of the Mathematical Association of NSW, Holly Gyton, said students in the bottom 10 per cent of the state were equipped to complete only the year 11 stage of the general mathematics course.
</BOD>

 

[buchanan]

5 more submissions by John Mack, Kaye Stacey, Peter Gould, Bill Pender and Stuart Palmer:

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/symposium/John-Mack-Symposium-Paper.pdf

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/symposium/Kaye-Stacey-Symposium-Paper.pdf

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/symposium/Peter-Gould-Symposium-Paper.pdf

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/symposium/Bill-Pender-Symposium-Paper.pdf

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/symposium/Stuart-Palmer-Symposium-Paper.pdf

 

[buchanan]

Ms Bishop is seeking national statements of learning in some subjects by 2008.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...iculum-takeover/2006/10/05/1159641464892.html

Well the last time they tried that in maths was in 1991 and it was a complete failure. It was called A National Statement on Mathematics for Australian Schools. It's complete rubbish.

I'll write my own syllabus thanks very much. I don't need Hitlerites (or for that matter, Maoists) to do it for me. So I made a website at http://users.tpg.com.au/nanahcub/me2.html

 

[BIRUNI]

What is your expectation of the syllabus?

 

[buchanan]

I wrote a submission to the Board of Studies at

http://www4.tpgi.com.au/nanahcub/submission.pdf

for the new syllabus.

 

[BIRUNI]

I read that and that was good.

I personally think it is very good to include 3 dimensional geometry and matrices, some pure mathematics.

 

[buchanan]

Yeah. That would be better than the useless Statements of Learning for Mathematics:

http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/_resources/SOL_Mathematics.pdf

created on August 15, 2006 by the same organisation, the Curriculum Corporation, which published the equally useless A National Statement on Mathematics for Australian Schools some 15 years ago.

I bet John Howard $50 that I'm the only maths teacher in the country (as at the time of this post) who has actually read the Statements of Learning for Mathematics.

It is surely doomed. It says: this document is primarily intended for curriculum developers. It is not the express intent that the document is promoted directly with teachers or the general community - which means (unlike MANSW and the NSW Board of Studies consultation process), teachers and the general community are excluded from the process! Fine. The extent of my implementation will be directly proportional to the extent to which I have been consulted. In the case of MANSW and the NSW Board of Studies: 100%. And in the case of Curriculum Corporation: 0%.

 

[BIRUNI]

I fistly going to ask you something. Why do you think having probability is essential?

I guess most of mathematics teachers do not bother themselves to check the syllabus. they just got a text book and teach from that.

 

[Affinity]

A good syllabus is of no use when students don't study the subjects. universities should bring back the prerequisites

 

[buchanan]

I fistly going to ask you something. Why do you think having probability is essential?

I didn't say that. The Curriculum Corporation said it and I don't agree with them. I said in my submission that probability can be replaced with number theory.

 

[haque]

i agree with u buchanan and it seems like our maths teacher's prediction came true-they'll bring in essay writing for maths-my personal opinion is that the syllabus is a bit weak on complex numbers in which we should deal with a greater range of vector analysis and not the basic stuff we get fed at school- a greater emphasis on number theory and sequences as well as differential equations would be what i'd like. the calculus we learn at school doesn't go into enough detail when we're talking about formal proofs of theorems etc like they do in uni in which they have a deeper understanding of limits and continuity. even if they change the syllabus, my siblings will have my reccomendation to refer to ur site-at least it's for people who are interested in the subject and not after "syllabus dotpoints".

 

[zeek]

We should improve creativity and deep understanding, not rote learning.

Too true, educating students and forcing them to use "higher logic" is the way to go.

 

[haque]

Creativity and understanding comes from ones own intuition and ability -u can't teach anyone creativity, however the things that are learnt are way too basic and simple and must be made harder-so what if the less competent think there's too much there and can't cope with higher order thinking-perhaps a separate syllabus i.e 3 unit made harder should be for them.

 

[BIRUNI]

but there is another problem here. my dad is a maths teacher and he always has had 1 or 2 student in 4 unit in his school and about 13-15 3unit students and if we make the maths much more complicated, we will not have lots of students.Nowadays students do not want to do harder maths. Why? I do not know and that is what my dad always says.

 

[haque]

when i made that post what i really meant was that we should be doing harder stuff from earlier on-if it means making a syllabus for primary schools then thats fine-because the reason people would find things difficult is the fact that often it is a big jump for people from yr 10 to 11-doing stuff early certainly helped me get my ranks at school.