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from the no-royal-road-to-understanding-students dept.
Oxford researchers are taking part in an international study to film the teaching of quadratic equations for secondary school pupils. The hope is that lessons will be learned on how to bring out the best in pupils learning about mathematics.
Over the next few months, video cameras will appear in secondary schools across England that have chosen to take part in an international study to observe maths lessons focused on quadratic equations. Researchers from the University of Oxford have joined forces with the Education Development Trust to undertake the study in England, which will involve up to 85 schools from different parts of the country. The research team has to enlist 85 teachers and around 1,200 pupils, so they can analyse video footage of different teaching practices and pupils' responses to assess what works best. Schools in Oxfordshire will be among those approached about taking part in the pilot.
The research project is led by Education Development Trust, working with Dr Jenni Ingram and Professor Pam Sammons from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. They will analyse how pupils' attitudes toward quadratic equations are linked with their progress and results, and observe how teachers' attitudes and methods affect outcomes.
Dr Ingram said: "We believe this study will improve our understanding of the relationships between a range of teaching practices and various student outcomes, including their enjoyment of mathematics, mathematical knowledge and engagement with learning."
Or you could watch Khan Academy.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday March 28 2017, @06:45PM (1 child)
You can derive it by completing the square on the generic equation
When I took algebra, admittedly decades ago, this was implied as the pinnacle of the class, the purpose for taking the class. And we got to write the whole proof down and took a fill in the blank test to make sure we really understood that the biggest accomplishment of algebra is applying about a page worth of rules can numerically solve an entire class of equations. Not solve one particular equation. Not solve some members of a class of equation. But every member of that class can be solved at the class level.
Which is actually pretty amazing if you didn't already know.
Where my algebra class fell down was in not extending the argument a wee bit to explain why there's no similar simple equation for, like, 9th degree polynomials. So trying to rush things and pack more work in resulted in the most interesting point being missed, that some classes of equations can be algebraically solved at the class level and some entire classes of equations cannot.
Its a hell of an argument against sex education in schools. If the same people developed the sex ed curriculum as developed the algebra curriculum then somehow sex would be the most boring, tedious, and pointless experience that a human can have, and people would take great joy in telling each other proudly how incompetent they are at it "I donno I just push buttons randomly until it works" "without electronic/mechanical help I can't do anything" "One kid does all the work and the rest just watch" "I can't estimate I just plug and chug" "I do my homework by asking the 4chan anons for the answers" "My mom can't do it so she can't help with my homework" Well that's beginning to sound creepy. Hilarious but creepy. Anyway school can just suck the life right out of the whole topic or hobby. Likewise I'm glad there's no programming classes at my kid's K-12 school district, I can't imagine a better way to ruin programming for life for kids than to make it a topic of K12 education.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:57PM
I dunno, that sounds like an argument for sex education in schools to me. Sex is not the pinnacle of human experience, after all, no matter what advertisers would rather you believe.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?