UKH

How much do you reckon Putin pays these folks to do this? Reckon we have found how Rom pays the bills?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-61012398

Very little money. What do you think a conscript gets paid?  According to Google (I can't confirm accuracy) volunteered service starts at $900 per year (62,000 roubles) but conscripts get a stipend of only  $30!!! (2,000 roubles). Don't forget between 18 and 27 everyone in Russia is required to give 1 year's national service.

So to answer your question directly I'd say many of the people posting this get paid 2,000 roubles per year. Not sure they'll get rich from that job

Never underestimate the number of other reasons provided by human psychology. Some people are just hardcore contrarian - hardwired to go against the majority, no matter what information they are presented with. Some people ended up at the very bottom of a filter bubble well just though the sort of stuff they kept clicking on - maybe they just started with a contrarian streak but it was amplified completely out of control by their social media algorithms. Some people are probably just championing the underdog (vs the west obviously, not vs Ukraine), that one at least we can all relate to. Some people will have financial motivations and say and do things which they know are wrong simply to make money (maybe they own shares in Russian arms manufacturers for example) - you only have to look as far as the oodles of people who have big fossil fuel investments and, on the surface at least, refuse to accept global warming to see how this one works. Some of them may have been done a favour in the past by Putin or one of his officials and are just doing their little bit to return the favour, quid pro quo - everyday examples of this include all the companies and individuals who donate to political parties and campaigns, hoping that down the line they might get a wee favour or just the ear of the right person.

"It's all just paid for by Putin/Russia" is, I feel, an overly reductionist point of view which would make it much harder to understand the phenomenon or tackle it.

The English language misinformation campaigning/trolling we're subjected to is not done by teenage conscripts. Sure it's repetitive and tedious but also usually also pretty capable, the arguments and obfuscations subtle and worldly beyond what you'd expect of teenagers pressed into unwanted labour.

I was pondering the Russian-troll phenomenon this morning thinking things here had gone surprisingly quiet, I haven't seen an obvious pop-up campaigning account on here for weeks despite all that's going on. I could have missed deleted posts/threads of course but I presume the efforts of even the foreign speakers have temporarily been redirected inwards to where they are needed to steady Putin's presidency and in the media brownout likely to be quite effective.

FWIW I don't think 'Rom' fits the pattern, god knows what he or she gets from all the burner accounts and bans but they do just seem to me like an individual with an pretty odd hobby.

jk

Spot on. These troll/bot posters probably seem benign if annoying on here but ukc forum posters have in general much higher than average critical thinking skills. Out in the ‘real world’ of befuddled addicts of easy answers where scapegoats and conspiracies make life understandable, trolls like this must be incredibly toxic.

Oddly I recently unfriended a very well known climber on FB because of constant sharing of antivax/Covid conspiracies. It’s a bit scary when people you otherwise respect start believing this shit.

If it's who I think it is then it was really unpleasant as well as disappointing.

I agree. Rom is/was an intelligent poster who seemed to have a background in consultancy of some sort, unlikely to be low-paid, along with a certain victim mentality and a total inability to take on board arguments other than their own, as anyone who debated with them soon found out. However I had a few exchanges with them on immigration and economics where they made some relevant and perceptive comments - and I agreed that we would disagree, clearly!

The OP link seems to be a balanced and interesting investigation. Maybe some people in Russia actually like Putin and want to support him, much like Trump in the US? I don't think you need international conspiracies for a large part of that.

I don't see how or why that would be "maybe". In every country there are huge numbers of people who support their leaders no matter what. Either through national loyalty or because they think those leaders are doing the right thing 

Edit, spelling 

I'm sure Putin has many real fans, probably enough that several 10s of them have settled on pushing cutesy images of him with animals as a hobby and it's even possible they've somehow organically been connected across languages and oceans. Possible. But I'm skeptical.

Out of curiosity, are you of the opinion organised Russian online misinformation 'trolls' targeted at social media (including media as obscure, sorry Alan, as UKC) are not really a thing or just that the particular accounts mentioned in that investigation don't quite fit that profile?

Like with most fake grassroots campaigns they only stand even the most basic critical scrutiny once they've connected with the next layer of willing believers who can be drip fed material to which they add their own authenticity and flavour before it's amplified. I'd guess most of the 'Putin riding a lion' type accounts fall would into that category: believers* and contrarians drip fed ideas, connected with others of similar mindsets to build an organic seeming network with some authentic chaos and regional flavour to it's output.

*They exist, I can think of one, erstwhile long-time poster on here with a penchant for soviet-era communism and a seemingly unshakable belief Vladimir Putin shares those political objectives.

jk

I think many people cannot accept that people in another country can have a genuinely held belief so different to their own.
I have never been to Russia and it looks like my planned trip on the Trans Siberian Railway is off the cards for the moment.
When the Ukrainian war started I thought a little more about Russia, and realised I have virtually no knowledge about it. I could name 3 or 4 Cities, and that its big, 6 days in a train big. 
I would say my perception is shaped by the Cold War and Holywood.
I have no conception of how Russian people think about Putin and the war, and I doubt that many if any posters on UKC have much more of an idea than me.
They might thing its a good think and that Putin is doing a grand job, they might not.
I just do not know.
 

"but ukc forum posters have in general much higher than average critical thinking skills."

ain't nowt like wishful thinkin' to lead you to a false sense of security and superiority - ripe for the pickin'

What did I say about saying his name three times...?

They appear 2822828277272726 times?

This is pretty out of date, but when I lived there a number of years ago I found that a number of my acquaintances would say that they didn't really like Putin, but at least he wasn't a drunkard and he was a "strong man". I can certainly understand the importance of him not being a drunkard. The "strong man" thing is obviously an image he plays to for good reason. It, certainly at that time, seemed to be very important for them and they were willing to overlook the other things they didn't like about him.

Of course, I wouldn't dare ask any of my friends there now what they think of him, they don't even message incase they get found out. Way too dangerous. The ones who have left Russia are very vocally anti-Putin, but obviously that is probably not a very representative group!

SORRY!! 

In addition to that, several Russian scientists I know professionally have suddenly started spouting pro-invasion bullshit, e.g. complaining about the removal of Russian professional societies from the board of their international federation as a consequence of Ukrainian fake news

I don't for a moment think that they actually believe that crap, they have seen enough of the world and I know some of them privately as well, but they definitely seem to think that they better be seen to publicly support Putin and possibly even better, show that they have become a "martyr" for his case.

Difficult issue how to deal with these people!

CB

Indeed, there is absolutely nothing clear or straightforward! At least your scientists probably do have access to international media and can form opinions, even if they can't express them. Some Russians are just being fed tripe and don't even know it

Rom's day job?

He's an investor. He made no secret that he would make a tidy wedge out of Covid.  He's probably doing quite nicely out the Ukraine war.  Low life scum.

Thanks for your reply, Steve

But I really don't know why you're garnering dislikes (not from me). Dislikes really proliferate these days. I swear, if I posted that "Butter costs 3.05 a pound in TESCO now", I'd get a few dislikes. Some people really should get a life. IMO

Nonsense it's £1.55.  Dislike given.

£6.20 a kilo! £2.81 a pound!! I rest my case

You might get a scathing comment about not specifying the physical units for the price (e.g. £3.05) but I've never yet pressed dislike over the omission of units.  Although I did leave a comment in Jr's homework book with questions set up like "3 x 2 = 6 bananas" pointing out that they meant "3 x 2 bananas = 6 bananas" but I didn't get a response.  I start to understand why the undergraduates take so much work to consistently use physical units...

Rant rant rant.

Dislikes, I have turned those off.

UKC and Climbing in general TBH is Left of Center, Remain, White Middle Class, and everyone many of them know are Left of Center, Remain, White Middle Class.
Note 65s comment re being more educated, or some such guff. Also all their media be that newspapers or social media will reflect these attitudes. 
Left of Center, Remain, White Middle Class, are as susceptible to Algorithms feeding them what they want to hear, just as much as anyone else.

Sadly due to Alogrithims people are so rarely subjected to views at odds with their own, people really struggle when they come up against them

So the Dislikes will be for my posting a view which is at odds with what people are used to hearing.

I would suggest you would get dislikes for a comment such as that, because UKCers will shop at, in no particular order;

• Aldi
• Waitrose
• Booths
• Local Farm Shop
  
   

All the best, Steve

I find that a good principle with online content is to follow the money / power / influence. My guess would be that much of the content is designed for its consumers, not at the world wide web in general; so in answer to your question, in black and white terms, I would say no, it's not really a thing. I don't check the UKC forums as often as some regular posters, seemingly, so I don't see much weirdness that escapes the eagle eye of the mods.

Wrt "believers", as history undergrads we were advised to choose a particular political drum and bang it as loudly and as accurately as possible. It didn't matter which drum, although as typical history lecturers they advised communist obviously. I think they were desperate to get something better than the watered down semi-right-wing liberal drivel that they would otherwise have to wade through, and in fact one chap who wrote extreme right pieces got consistent firsts for his course work.

The communist poster that I remember on here was indeed like a stream of bat's piss

ff

And for measuring butter by the pound. Buy it in 250g blocks like a sensible person.

(For the record, last time I paid specific attention to the price a block cost me £1.80 - or for those still living in the 18th century £3.99/lb*

And for the other record that was in Morrisons)

*Not converted to 18th c. rates...

So would you put all units in at every stage of a calculation? I actively discourage this!

Forgive me being dim but I don't really understand what you're saying. That you think content (where here we mean covert campaigning, commercial or political) created for 'the web' is targeted at specific users/user-groups, not just scatter-gunned out into the world?

I'd agree but I don't think that in any way excludes the possibility that paid professional 'campaigners' are covertly active on social media.

jk

- 3 x 2 = 6
- 3 x 2 bananas = 6 bananas
- 3 x 2 ≠ 6 bananas

Omit the units and the workings are wrong.  Why write down wrong workings?

They provide a lot of context and should resolve down to units appropriate to the final answer - if they don’t, it’s an independent red flag on the solution.

House style on the u/g exam papers I’ve set for a few thousand students was to work the units through the solutions.  Not half as tedious as it sounds as the first steps are algebraic.  That style extends to the lecture notes from the staff paying attention, and to homeworks. 

I wept when a colleague showed my 6th form paper with a blank working area, a box for the solution and the physical units of the solution pre-printed to the right of the box.

Ask Captain Bob Pearson about the importance of tracking physical units.  Or ask NASA about the Mars Climate Orbiter.

It's fairly straightforward. Faced with a black and white question - do you think that people posting or hosting web content are doing it on their own account or as part of some government or clandestine organisation, I would say the former, for the reasons I mentioned (money / power / influence). There's perhaps more of a case for interference with elections and referendums, but even there, you have to discount the weirdos who are doing it for their own glory and other unimaginable reasons. Bots you can spot a mile off, I reckon.

Mind you, we are straying into the territory where I have to mention my amazing anti-conspiracy tinfoil hat. I'm just not a great believer in conspiracy, is all. YMMV.

Some of the blogs and fakish news sites around the time of the Trump election were paid indirectly.  The Russians didn't give them money, they arranged for traffic and advertising revenue when they posted things they approved of.  The site operators learned what to say in order to make more money and ended up reposting and linking each other's stories. There were groups of students in Eastern Europe countries putting up blogs/websites as a cottage industry.

It's not that hard for somebody with a bot net of PCs with malware installed to arrange for them to visit websites and click on adverts and that's all that's needed for the blogger/news website to be financially motivated to post certain types of crap.

3 x 2 = 6

No units.

3 x 2 != 6 bananas. There is a discrepancy in the dimensions.

3 x 2 bananas = 6 bananas. Or 3 bananas x 2 = 6 bananas

No wonder universities have trouble with students unable to perform simple dimensional analysis.

3 bananas x 2 bananas = 6 square bananas

Even worse than bendy ones!

We don't need to worry about those since we left the EU (units or funny shaped bananas)

The universities set the entry standards. The schools can't be blamed for "teaching to the exam". Only with the brightest students do the schools have the opportunity to teach beyond the exam confines. Would it were not so.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that dimensional analysis should not be part of the A Level syllabus. It certainly was when I did A Level 50 years ago. But from your comment, I suspect that it might not be so today.

Martin

PS How did a serious topic introduced by the OP get converted into this rather nerdy discussion?

There doesn't seem to be much of a link between what universities would like and what is set as the standard for earlier years' exams.  There's an impedance mismatch there, and a lot of the factors at work on both ends have more to do with ludicrously distorted parodies of market forces than with pedagogy in my rather naive and borderline unhinged opinion.

Pretty relevant given the issues over paying in € vs ₽ right now...  

I am aware that there is a problem with leaving out units in a calculation.

However, when school pupils are first introduced to substituting into formulae, there is quite enough to worry about without the clutter of units and the distinction between letters standing for units and letters standing for numbers. The idea that dimensional analysis and the algebra involved would be within reach of all but a very few is far fetched.

Surely 3bana x 2nas =6 bananas

See what I mean about confusing units and variables?

It.would be rare to include units within enginering calculations.  E.g

5x3 =15 kNm is common

5kN x 3m = 15kNm rare

5000x3=15kNm also common with the conversion  implied.

I practised "dimensional analysis" with my children from the first time they would come up with such calculations in school: Always back check your rearranged formula using only the units. If you are looking for an energy and your formula gives you square meters, something probably went wrong.

Checking  the numerical values for plausibility is the other side of the same coin. No one believes in a 5kg planet.

I have had enough students unable to calculate how to mix 300ml of 70% Ethanol who apparently never learned to do either.

Also, always write down the logical connectors between the different statements when rearranging equations. This is where the actual math is.

What my children were asked in school to produce was to me just lists of arbitrary equations.

You can always be sloppy later*, as my daughter tells me. She must know, as she has just finished her thesis in theoretical physics.

CB

* everybody knows that there should be some subscripts and a Boltzmann constant somewhere, so for convenience we may as well leave them out...

The house style had spaces between number and the first unit, and between successive units, to avoid exactly this confusion.

So:

- 3 bana x 2 nas = 6 bana nas.

I agree that is would be a very worthwhile exercise with bright pupils.

But the less bright ones will profit more, as they are more likely in the first place to make a mistake that they can then correct!

Except that the checking process is more difficult than the original task. It would be a hopeless.

Dimensional analysis is really rather straightforward. I suspect you don't really understand what it is; you do seem to be confusing it with algebra, with unknown quantities. Which it is not.

...what...?

[edit] actually, this will probably be a hopeless argument, with you sticking dogmatically to your unorthodox opinion, so I will bow out.

I doubt that Robert would be confused. His pupils, on the other hand...

Somehow appropriate and satisfying that a thread started about Rom has been mainly about bananas.

I'm a teacher and I've had a few discussions over the years where I've been criticised for saying something similar to Robert's point. 

People with knowledge of a subject but without experience of high school teaching often don't realise the balancing act involved in getting pupils over the line in the exam. And like it or loathe it that's one of our primary responsibilities.

This isn't teaching to the exam or dumbing down it's a fine judgement based on pupils' abilities, circumstances, motivation, needs, the available time and the likely benefit.

Yes, I popped back in to see what folks were saying and decided the thread had gone way out of my understanding and bowed out! Lol

Only if the original lesson did not aim at generating an understanding of the underlying maths at all. Unfortunately this is indeed my suspicion.

The checking itself can be done by rote. E.g., distance / time / time --> m s-2 . Looks like an acceleration, but we were looking for an area, better start over...

CB

And that little bit of algebra alone will leave many baffled. They will be using simple formulae well before learning to deal with algebraic fractions.

Those advocating this sort of thing at school level when children start using simple formulae clearly have unrealistic ideas about teaching at school level.

I wonder how many of the population of the UK, have even the faintest notion of what that means. I guess that its a good thing that some people do, and it could be a route to a rich a fulfilling life.

However as a lot of people cannot cook a healthy low cost meal from scratch, or even know what a healthy low cost meal is,  I would suggest understanding, m s-2, is pretty low down on the list of societal needs.

I am suspecting this is Left of Center, Remain, White Middle Class chatter.

I remember covering basic dimensional analysis in physics and maths at A-level.  At the time I think got the idea fine but didn't appreciate the utility or importance - I would probably have taken the view that *of course* the dimensions are correct or we wouldn't be studying these equations.

We are discussing potential university students here, not those struggling to cook.  That you think getting engineering/physics/maths right is only middle class or white(!) concern is bizarre.  How do think the world works without many people who use these concepts on a daily basis?

Yes, that is the level at which pupils might be ready for it. Not when they first start using then manipulating formulae.

10 years ago it was in the M3 module at level. It was only studied by a few hundred students (England and Wales) all doing Further Maths. I actually agree it is beneficial in many areas, and could have been taught to far more A level students, say in M1, but what would you take out of the specification? 

This was early nineties - I don't know if it was even formally in the syllabus or just the teachers adding useful stuff.

I don't know what's there any more but I suspect if the aim is useful maths/physics rather than aiming university level pure maths, a lot of the involved integration could be removed. Does anyone ever actually use partial fractions rather than looking it up in a book, for example?

Teaching maths further and better does not preclude a more general improvement in education. What does hold educational standards back in Britain, particularly in somes segments of society outside of the narrow 'class' you believe UKC serves is anti-intellectualism, something which your posts have quite a whiff of.

jk

WTF?

You surely realize that brown people have no interest at all in any aspect of the engineered world working correctly?

Not at all. Arriving at an understanding of why, say, t=d/s  can be done without understanding that m/(m/s) ----> s

Of course. They should be working in kitchens.

No, it is discussion by people in possession of a brain.

What really messes up society is people refusing to think, something you seem to applaud.

This antiintellectual tendency is particularly pertinent to maths, which is looked down upon as uncool and nerdy, even though it underlies essentially everything in our modern world, be that engineering or services.

I think that every C list celebrity who proudly declares that they were always shit at maths to gain a cheap round of applause from the surrounding idiots should be put into the stocks to be publicly humiliated.

How has it come to the point that an inability to conceptually understand maths be something to be proud of? You would not brag about being an analphabet either, even though it is pretty much the same thing.

Since you have me going off on a rant anyway, here goes:

Why does teaching any subject have to to be entertaining or "fun"? This even continues at uni level, where you would expect the students, who have not been forced to study your subject, to be motivated by an interest in the subject itself.  Some things simply are difficult, and when it is you task to understand these concepts, you will have to put in the hours.

Studying of course can and should be interesting, but it will at times also be hard graft, and will both require and teach disciplined work.

Maybe it is already too late when children enter school, but it should be much clearer that at times they have to do some hard, boring work because it is their duty to get some difficult concept in their little social media and computer game addled brains.

CB

But it would at least be helpful, in particular when you are insecure about deriving the formula for time in your example, to have a method of checking your equation essentially just by looking at it! IMO the best time to start practising this skill is right from the point when you start manipulating the simplest formulas.

As I said above, some reckoning ability as to whether a given result is plausible nicely complements that skill.

I had a student who bought 100g (half a glass full) of a highly toxic substance and tried to make a stock solution by dissolving the lot in a few ml of solvent. This could of course never work, but they had no concept of what a plausible concentration may have been, and that they were three orders of magnitude off.

It was touched on above, but I suspect there is a problem in that school maths provides the basis for all sort of university courses, each of which will have different priorities in terms of what is required.  For you here order of magnitude etc is important.  For pure maths, it probably isn't but more advanced calculus is.  Given the limited time at school, only so much is possible to fit it.

Forget advanced calculus, when I give a lecture on modeling protein transport I have to give a remedial 20min intro to differential equations, or try to do away with formulas containing coplicated greek letters entirely...

Complex numbers (e.g. for certain representations of decay times in FLIM microscopy)? You wish....

The majority of my students have come through the German system, but the same problem was present also at the renowned and supposedly highly selective UK uni where I was working before.

Surely not, since apparently they don’t know how to cook either. Although perhaps they can cook as long as they voted remain; hopefully Steve can clarify that. 

Whilst I agree with much of your post, particularly the “Ooh, aren't I thick LOL!” E list 'celebrities' bit, there's a world of difference between general education for children of all abilities, which is what Robert is alluding to, and teaching more advanced concepts to older students destined for academia or technical careers.

That has nothing to do with not conceptually understanding mathematics, that's just being thick as pigshit.

Well regardless of the level, the point stands - there is more maths than time at school level, so decisions about syllabus need to be made.  (Diff eqns are pretty advanced I would say - certainly I only met in them in Further Maths A-level, so expecting 1st year university students to be comfortable with them is a stretch)

My point is that checking units is a particularly helpful trick to help students struggling with deriving and manipulating simple, basic equations (e.g. speed /time /distance in the example) which therefore should be taught right from the off.

I agree, nothing to do with concepts, but routinely, almost subconsciously checking your results for plausibilty is a great life skill that complements the unit checking.

It is even better when applied to all kinds of unchecked claims you see e.g. on social media. Some simple plausibility check about whether the claimed order of magnitude of some effect could at all be real would help with preventing idiotic claims gaining so much traction, e.g. about the incidence of vaccination induced complications.

CB

But, as I said, dimensional analysis, even with simple speed/time /distance formulae involves algebraic understanding that will be well beyond most pupils when they first meet these formulae. It will not help them; it will baffle them. You said earlier that they could check just by "looking" - this assumes an understanding they simply will not have!

I agree that dimensional analysis is useful, but its introduction could really only realistically happen at A Level standard to be useful.

And pupils can get an A at A Level with about 70%. So even "bright" students might not have a proper grasp of about a third of what they have been taught!

I agree with your opinion about partial fractions v dimensional analysis, but the pure bias in maths teachers will mean we will be in the minority. 

Not sure I've taught too many kids who have been comfortable with diff eqns who haven't gone to do maths at Cambridge.

Going back to wintertree's original point I tend to agree with Robert. We are now discussing it at A level. At GCSE if a student was calculating the surface area of a prism  I wouldn't insist on them writing the units at every stage of their working out. The aim of the( primary school?) excrcise isn't clear. If it is to devlop fluency in times tables then  what is the point of the bananas? Does three groups of two cubes only represent the sum 2 cubes + 2 cubes + 2 cubes = 6 cubes or can it help with multiplication as well. 

Nah, differential equations and the like need to be brought forward to GCSE level and the obsession with tedious numeracy needs to be dropped. 

The tedious numeracy obsession is an out-of-date Thatcherite panic caused by the notion that kids working on the check-outs at Tesco's couldn't count the correct change and were therefore unfit for the "real world" of work but it's a skill that is no longer needed since "real" money has been replaced by e-money and the machines can count the £ S d correctly (unless you are the Post Office of course).

It also makes maths _really_ dull and puts talented kids off the subject and I think that is a massive shame and a massively retrograde step.

I'd say basic numeracy is pretty vital, but also mostly covered by about age 14, if not at primary school.

At long last, a thread that confirms my long-held nagging suspicion that Rom's day job must be a calculating, conspiratorial, contrarian, middle class, professional Russian troll who sells square bananas to Aldi.

It should be engaging.  If it is, it becomes fun or entertaining for many of the students.  

Once upon a time.  These days it's often by career paths pre-planned with their parents.  By the mid-point of their degree, many of mine would done a summer internship or two and have a job offer lined up contingent on a 2:1, and then they'd pick modules and courses based on the safest way to hit their 2:1.  Changing times.  It's getting to the point where a PhD is becoming a significant differentiator in non-academic job markets and this is a strong motivating factor for many choosing PhDs.

There is a balance, but in my opinion, in secondary schools, too many teachers find the easiest way to make their lesson engaging is at the expense of teaching their subject. Partly due to external expectations. 

How do you know this?

I did say it was my opinion. I supposed it's mainly based on my experience. That included 11 OFSTED inspections, most of which were during the last 8 years of my career. Latterly I did some work across most of United Learnings 46 secondary schools, mainly looking at the data, but did involve a considerable number of lesson observations to see if/how they (didn't) matched the data. Since retiring three years ago I've been in about a dozen secondary schools mainly teaching but also doing quite a few observations during things like job interviews. On a broader level I'd put it down to a several factors. The main one is that too many senior teachers (me included), advisors and inspectors are doing observations outside of our specialism. It is then far easier to judge engagement rather than learning. I've actually been in lesson obs. where someone thought the lessons were deemed outstanding even though what the kids had been told was incorrect, plenty of others where no one could really explain to me what had been learned during the lesson. In all cases the justification for the judgement was that all the students were engaged at all times. It is a slight tangent but I think that Bjork's principle of interleaving has taken so long to be accepted is that students don't like it. 

Having read Rob Jones's reply, I think you scored a bit of an own goal there. !

Interesting to read your take on things. Non-specialists being ill equipped to observe is undoubtedly problematic, especially in subjects like MFL. that is irrelevant to the issue you raised, however.

I'd be interested in what strategies you have seen employed to increase engagement at the expense of learning.  Could you add some detail to that please?

to the OP- apologies for the off topic posting

I don't think it is irrelevant. You mention MFL, when I managed the MFL department the perception is that one particular teacher was very weak and this was supported by internal and external observation judgements. . There were often behaviour issues in her lessons, parental complaints etc. I thought she was a really good teacher. Making progress in a second language is hard work. Other members of the department were engaging the students by making their lessons easier/fun, not expecting the kids to speak Spanish, playing games doing word searches etc. I'd like to think my opinion/faith was justified as over 5 years we went from a handful of kids doing GCSE Spanish to 30%

Recently, building a model of a castle in History, presentation about their favourite mathematician, half a dozen Posters

Likewise 

Yes, I posted hastily, irrelevant is too strong, sorry. I think the issue is whether the normal classroom teaching changes to suit the observer, so the validity of the judgment to then extrapolate to the norms you don’t see is open to debate. Fundamentally, it’s a strong statement to imply significant numbers of teachers are failing to teach effectively across the system, as your initial post did. I am not commenting on whether true or not, just wondering if you had some solid evidence for that across the system as a whole. I don’t see observations by non specialists as providing that, especially when conducted by Ofsted.

The examples you quote (excepting posters where it depends very much on what goes into them) I find shocking tbh, because they are not examples of teaching. I have seen that sometimes when doing supply, but not often to be fair, including in some very difficult contexts.

Sounds like you did a fantastic job with recruitment! If I may ask, what do you feel were the main factors/strategies in achieving that?

Here’s a recent article on a US outfit building a space launch program on anti-intellectualism.

It's just my opinion and definitely open to debate. 

It was meant more as a criticism of the system and concern that some teachers are being made to do that for the sake of their own careers/wellbeing. It was actually meant to be supportive of the teachers that are accused of being boring, for actually doing a professional job 

Not really, just observational, although you might have prompted me to look for some. Again I've nothing to support this other than experience/observations but I think the prevalence of BTEC's 10 or so years ago to some extent exacerbated the problem. Basically a significant number of current senior staff have got where they are on the basis of perceived outstanding results. IMO those results were achieved by a lot of hard work, but had very little to do with teaching and learning. I think I was a much better maths teacher than science teacher, but my results at the time would suggest otherwise to many. It might have just been me getting old, but towards the end of my career I felt I was taking to more and more Assistant/Deputy Heads who hadn't actually taught kids to learn, they had only facilitated kids  doing something. 

The number of OFSTED observations probably isn't enough to make it significant, but I think the perception of what they want to see does. 

Not listening to parents who complained that the lesson were too hard, boring and she had no control was a start. To be honest the nature of the intake did change positively overtime which help significantly. Supporting the member of staff in what she was trying to do was important particularly on the behaviour side, not ideal but I did have some of the more challenging students in my room/often quite often. On the positive side we did quite a bit of work trying to address parental attitudes (70% voted leave) on things like open/options evening. I did genuinely prioritise it on the timetable. 

Whooos.  Link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-its-rocket-with-...

Thank you for such a helpful and detailed reply! Please don’t think I wasn’t  taking your experience seriously, but it’s always interesting to learn a little more.

Parental engagement- yes, crucial.

Thanks again,

Jonathan

If true (and I don't doubt it is) this is incredibly sad. What employers in these non-academic employment  sectors are surely seeking is applicants with the intellectual capacity to do the job. That students have to go through 3 or 4 years of undergraduate study plus the same amount of post-graduate study, all in subjects not relevant to the career in question, just in order to prove that they possess that top 1% intellectual ability seems to be a crazy waste of the time they could be spending developing in the job.

On a different point I do get the feeling, as one who has taught secondary school maths across the full ability range, that some posters on this thread are perhaps not aware of the rather narrow range of intellectual abilities possessed by the students they encounter. The idea that differential equations are not "advanced calculus" for example. Or the suggestion that dimensional analysis would help "less able" students with their understanding of calculations in physics. My teaching experience was long ago, but I would feel these concepts are still today outside the comprehension of the large majority of the school population. 

Martin

Jesus...! 

Its one of the often overlooked problems with the lets push everyone to get a degree.

Not only are the poor sods having to pay for the degree but now its long term value in terms of wages is vastly reduced so if you want to stand out you need to cough up and lose several more years doing a masters and possibly a phd.

Getting a Masters as fast track to a decent job? HA!

One of my daughters, 2.1 from top 10 red brick, then got Masters last year from one of the supposedly best universities in the UK, she's finally got a job in customer services. And she's no dullard!

God knows how much she owes for the first 3 years, she's having to pay back nigh on £200 a month for the M.

Why would you bother?

Glad you followed up with the link, I was rather confused.

As for the content, it's a perfect metaphore for the Johnson government

Jk

Looks like it has gone downhill even more from when I was last properly aware/involved in it.

Still it has the positive of people not appearing on the unemployment register for several more years whilst they pay for an education which doesnt really help employability.

Isn't dimensional analysis taught in intermediate or higher physics? So the kids get it at school, just not in the maths class.

Outstanding! A very dangerous way to recreate what ten pints of Guinness and a few pickled eggs can do for less money and little risk of serious harm.

I liked this quote the best: "You have to work hard, but you do not have to be very smart,"

I first got taught/learnt about it in 1st or 2nd year Engineering. And thought what a brilliant and simple concept of proving/confirming a result.

😬

I don't know. But if it were, they would certainly find it hard! I'll ask.

When I first came across it, my immediate thought was: very clever, but what if there's a numerical factor, or worse, a dimensional constant in there screwing things up?

That's a further level of checking, isn't it? I spend too much of my time converting cm^4 to mm^4  etc etc, and then occasionally someone gives a value in inches...

I think at a school dimensional analysis was covered mostly in physics, not maths.  Physics also did finding an exponential constant from a log plot, which was revelatory for me.  Maths missed something there.

What an ace thread!

That rocket test is nuts. It's a shame the owners are not forced to be right alongside their unfortunate workers.

Back on bananas, as we seem to be moving towards regularised groups in some shopping outlets (that I won't name as it will apparently risk giving away all my political opinions) 3x2 is maybe better represented as 11 . Otherwise I'm with you, Rob and Martin about teaching maths to ordinary kids (and I long since stopped being shocked about yet another high flying scientist misunderstanding practicality in teaching... just as if everyone in class was like them).

A PhD was always as much about luck, grit and stamina than intellect...good qualities to have though alongside brains. English HE is of course currently best avoided if in any doubt (except for the rich or sponsored)... I feel for those from average or below average household wealth who will be conned into bad decisions and trapped to shoulder debt nearly all their working life (in professions which look to me to be much less likely to be the fulfilling job for life that they were in my day).

Back to the start of the thread and developing on from what Henwardian said, because of the way human psychology operates, it is vital we have good governance, firm regulation of those who might have agendas and maintain a high regard for openness and truth. Unfortunately we in the west are quickly heading in the opposite direction... Russia isn't so very far away from us, when we started our own illegal wars, fail to check bs propaganda, elect incompetent leaders who lie as a norm and with near impunity and who can rely on most in the population hardly seeming to notice.

We do that in Higher Maths in Scotland. Definitely cool.

Why on earth would they find it hard? The only thing that comes to mind is that the level of basic mathematical understanding expected from primary school to year 6 or 7 (or whenever children are expected to start constructing and manipulating simple equations) has been allowed to drop through the floor.

CB

It used to be in Higher Physics, a long time ago, but it isn't now in either Higher or Advanced Higher Physics. It does seem a shame - it didn't take long, and does give an additional insight into relationships between quantities. 

As I said earlier expecting most pupils to find m/(m/s) ----> s accessible when they first start using D/S/T formulae is pie in the sky. The algebra involved will not have been met yet, many will have a weak grasp of numerical fractions. And that's quite a simple example! I think you are massively overestimating kids' mathematical ability and competence. It is possibly the sort of thing I might show a top set if I had time to go "off piste".

I went to school in Greece and we did it in year 11 and 12 physics, where we were asked to algebraically derive all results down to a final formula, then verify by putting the units in, then MAYBE put the numbers in if there was any time left.

What age are you talking about, and what has gone wrong before? The idea tha,t generally, if your formula is correct your result should have the correct units irrespective of the numerical values (ignoring dimensional constants for the moment) is so simple that I have privately taught it to my children when they were maybe 11 yo and started measuring speed and acceleration in their natrual sciences class using a stop watch and matchbox car.

CB

Using D/S/T formulae and simple area and volume formulae at about age 12 or 13. Changing the subject of formulae at about age 14 or 15.  But dealing with fractions algebraically which is needed in all but the very simplest cases is covered after both. Even with simple areas of rectangles, I think they would generally find the algebra confusing, adding a layer of sophistication which would distract disastrously from the main task for many.

Nothing has gone wrong. You are just being unrealistic about most pupils' mathematical progession and competence. Sure, you daughter may have coped fine, but I would suggest she is an outlier (I think you said earlier that she has  just completed a theoretical physics thesis!).

This is the way.

Lots of interesting replies on the thread stemming from my bananas rant.  Lots of low expectations of secondary pupils.  Lots of reasons tied up in inequality and anti-intellectualism but I suggest that teaching this wrong to 6 years olds is not a good foundation to build upon.  My experiences of talking with children this age and of formally taking stuff out in a research project to schools - in a less than affluent area - is that at this age they're absolute sponges, and most have no problem grasping the difference between "2 x 3 = 6" and "2 x 3 bananas = 6 bananas".  A bit of physical play with some baskets and some fruit will help others.

Disappointed that nobody picked up on my comment over the importance of spaces between physical units...

I don't think I am unrealistic, but I do believe that standards have dropped, starting in primary school.

My daughter is indeed finishing her theoretical physics studies, but the concept is so simple I could even teach it to her older sister who is just finishing medical school*

CB

* Sorry, could not resist, any dig at medics is fair game for biologists....

I left a tenured post recently.  Lots of reasons, one of them was that I felt increasingly morally compromised having a chunk of my salary paid for by a fees-and-loan regime that had drifted so far from its origins into a de-facto hobbling "graduate tax", as part of a wider business also gouging on the accommodate front and providing a degree that was trying to be a jack of all trades and so did the best by relatively few of the students.  (Offwidth, thanks for your comments above).

Jr's higher education stage is over a decade away, but I'm trying to manage expectations.  I meet more and more young adults who have done part time HE along with part time work, either through their own initiative or with the support of a larger employer.  I see many benefits to this besides the financial one of having a positive income from the first months of their adult life.

Somewhere under all this is the dismantling of a system that truly empowers and fuels today's blue sky research that goes on to become the foundation of the economy half a century from now.

Compared to when?  I am good but unexceptional at Maths (A and B in 1993 Maths/Further Maths). Differential equations were in the Further Maths syllabus then and taught in upper sixth, so definitely on the edge of the syllabus and I only really understood them several years later.   THinking that most 1st year undergraduates will be comfortable with them is wrongheaded. Similarly, your insistence that dimensional analysis is easy is just wrong, I think.  Conceptually maybe fairly straightforward but beyond the simplest of cases, in practice it requires competence in fractions, powers and algebra, on top of of understanding whatever the context is.

I am sure they can, but I don't think it follows that they will cope with the algebra of dimensional analysis at age 13 or 14.

I never claimed they would.  That’s other people’s discussions.  I’m sticking to the point that I think (with some basis) that appropriate use of the banana as a unit is within grasp of KS1 pupils.

But whatever they’re capable of now, which direction do you think that capability would move in if there was a consistent and correct approach to teaching over the previous 7 years?  That it doesn’t leave most of them ready for dimensional analysis is no reason not to take a step in that direction.

Within workings rather than after a result? I still think putting units within working is unusual and confusing, in general.

Compared to the 1970s and 80s when I was in school.

Differential equations is something I would definitely expect of MSc students (not necessarily being able to solve them analytically or numerically, but to be able to describe, say, a model of protein transport through the cell as a system of concentrations in some compartment plus the local concentration outside that compartment times the import rate,  minus the internal concentration times the export rate, etc.)

I would not necessarily expect this of 1st year BScs (they will have maths classes at uni that should cover the relevant concepts).

In primary school in Bavaria back in the 70s I learned my maths (not just calculating) in a very systematic way. In grade four (age 9/10) we were given blue plastic boxes with wooden blocks of various sizes to do addition and multiplication hands on but very systematically. following that we even had a very simple intro into set theory as the foundation of algebra using sets of these blocks (complete with the abstract symbols for intersections, etc.).

This has all been superseeded by a syllabus desgend by humanities graduates. As the joke goes, if a farmer has six sacks of potatoes, and sells them for 3 gold coins each, how does this make the potatoes feel?

As for dimensional analysis, a "competence in fractions, powers and algebra, on top of of understanding whatever the context is" is definitely something I would expect of everyone leaving school, with a varying level of depth of that understanding depending on the further plans of the individual students.

CB

Naah, half a point deduction for not rearranging this to 6 bsn^2a^3

CB

I've just asked our whole maths department whether they get pupils to put units within working. None do. Unanymity that it would result in confusion.

My guess is that the added layer of sophistication would result in confusion for many.

When the students start rearranging equations, to you demand the inclusion of the appropriate arrow symbols for logical equivalence / logical consequence in the workings? I still had to do this, the (IMO correct) argument of my teachers being that "this is where the actual maths happens". By the time my children started doing algebra, it largely disappeared.

To me, leaving these symbols out just generates a list of mathematical equations that may or may not be related.

CB

No, I stopped requiring it about 25 years ago. I prefer to fight my battle in resisting the use of an equals sign as a comma or other randomness.

Depressing. It also seems to confirm my suspicion that standards have dropped, as > 25 years ago you seem to have considered it worth enforcing!

CB

I'm not convinced they have been raised significantly, but there are probably more kids doing Further Maths now than were doing maths 25 years ago 

Most people who are reflective get better at their jobs. 

One concern would be that kids are very good at spotting patterns, less so at developing and maintaining understanding. A book containing pages of questions like 2cm x 3cm = 6cm^2 could easily confusion if they looked back on it at a later date. Just to be clear I'm not suggesting the concept isn't explained to the kids, but I'm not sure how writing the working out fully helps. 

That is as may be, but what about the content of current further maths modules relative to the curricula of 25 or 30 years ago?

By your own description, having to be precise about the logic of your argument is one thing that seems to have been dropped.

Do you still do proofs in school? I remember that from age 14 or so up every single theorem that was used in class was proved either by us or the teacher (or at least an outline of the proof given if too complicated). Over time, we accumulated a good idea of different styles of proof (by means of contradiction, by induction, ...).

I very much believe that this helps with logical thinking also outside maths.

CB

edit: I have mixed up my responses to you and Robert Durran, but I think the question goes to both of you anyway!

In Scotland the Advanced Higher course has a section on these different types of proof. Exam questions are normally quite simple technically but with the emphasis on the precise logical structure. 

In general I show proofs (or watered down proofs) to classes depending very much on the ability and interest of the class.

A bugbear of my own is textbooks that ask you to use the converse of pythagoras' theorem to prove that a triangle is not right angled, when what they mean is the contrapositive of pythagoras' theorem (something I only realised myself when I started teaching proof in the AH course!).

More so since 2015. I'm sure Gove will be citing the fact that both grades have  improved and grade boundaries have increased as evidence for rising standards. 

It's a judgement call, about how many/which ones. At GCSE level the odd kid will be interested and able enough to benefit from deriving the Cosine rule, but on the exam they will only be asked to apply it, and fewer than 20% of kids will do that correctly. 

A few kids still do, but many kids struggle to remember yesterday's s lesson. 

Out of interest, how many years experience of teaching in both Primary & Secondary schools do you have?

None (except having three children who have made it through school), but I do have experience with the students that rock up at uni (both in the UK and Germany) having come through the respective school systems. I thought that was quite clear from my posts!

Anyway, my feeling is that the maths skills students arrive with at my courses has dropped dramatically over the last, say, 15 years that I have been teaching, even though the relative importance of maths for my field (biology) has steadily increased in the same time span.

My colleagues teaching physics simply despair, and indeed many physics departments now run multi week introductory courses before the actual first semester starts, so that students stand a chance with the exact same topics they were well equipped tackling with just their school maths 20 years ago.

CB

Thanks!

CB

Thanks!

CB

My brother's partner is a Chemistry professor in the UK. He would agree completely with you. Personally I think this is more about the students they are accepting onto the course than any change in overall standards. Does anyone know any data on things like Oxbridge entrance exam, BMAT tests? Interesting he was saying it was noticeably worse this year, presumably due to the impact of covid. Its only a sample of 2, but my brother (Anthropology) actually thinks his new  students have benefitted from not having to do A level exams. 

The dearth of secondary school Physics teachers probably has some bearing on this in the UK

And there we have the difference in our perceptions in a nutshell I think. You're, dare I suggest (hopefully not too presumptuously) a science academic whose teaching brings you into contact with probably only the top 10 or 15% of the ability spectrum in maths, and whose experience of younger children is inevitably influenced by the achievements of your own exceptionally high-flying daughters. I managed only a poor undergraduate degree (albeit from a renowned university) and spent my early career teaching secondary maths across the full comprehensive ability range. My own schooling, in the 60's, was in selective schools, and it was quite a shock to me to discover, when I started teaching, how wide the full ability range actually is.

From my experience, your expectation of "everyone leaving school" is, I fear, just hugely unrealistic. 

Martin

PS I'd not read the rest of the exchange between yourself and the two Roberts before writing the above. All very interesting stuff. I think the huge increase in access to university courses in the late 90's early 2000's accounts a lot for the perception that school standards have dropped. They would have had to have increased quite unrealistically suddenly to turn out 50% of 18 year olds in 2010 with the same average ability levels as the top 20% of 18 year olds in 1980.

My daughter is just finishing her first year of an engineering course and I have to say the maths course she just did was pretty much the same as the one I did getting on for 40 years ago.  The main difference is they've got a custom printed textbook and they are expected to learn Matlab. They took out the probability and statistics and put in some calculus which was in second year when I did the course 40 years ago but really, really similar.  They get far more coursework than we got but it's mostly automarked.

The course I find completely appalling is the 1st year engineering course.  They've bumped the degree up to a 5 year masters and it looks to me like they achieved this by teaching f*ck all in the first year.  40 years ago we walked in and the mechanical engineering lecturer was putting up equations for beams in week 2. This course is all 'let's do a business plan', happy clappy hippy sh*t about how to design buildings for indigenous people in Australia, teamwork and building heath robinson machines out of household crap like they were training to be Archie from Balamory.  FFS they'll be working for Leonardo, BAE Systems and Ineos in a few years. How the hell are we going to blow sh*t up and destroy the environment if the next generation of engineers don't learn the basics?

There is a wider point to the "maths standards are falling" claims that cb294 is buying into:  If you look at society in general, they clearly aren't.  Engineering, science, computer. biology, etc are all operating at a higher level and with greater numbers than 20, 30, 50 years ago.

Yes, but at the outset we have to play catch up, even though you would have hoped that the curriculum at school level would reflect the increased importance of maths.

Anyway, here endeth my contribution to thread derailment, I am off on a three day micro holiday....

Thanks everyone for the interesting contributions in the bit that had nothing to do with the OP topic!

CB

I actually think CB is right that a decline happened but his dates and arguments seem wrong to me. The big decline in the UK happened before 2000, as measured by research based on entry testing in the Engineering faculty at Coventy Poly/Uni (with help from the Engineering Council).  Possible reasons were many, including: the end of A level norm referencing, competition between boards; and too much focus on rote learning. I'd add that a bigger affect for us was EDEXCEL standardising and hence removing our well tailored maths in our engineering national diploma and certificate courses (we chose to drop all our BTEC courses as the new fixed syllabi no longer met our needs).

This link is a 2015 post of mine on the subject and the start of a discussion.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/simple_gcse_maths_question_-_wh...

I've lost access to academic research searches so it would be great if someone could link the Coventry Engineering research work from the early 2000s, as I can't find my old links to it on UKC (in the first decade of the millennium) nor find the papers direct via internet searches. A lot of work has been done in the general  area since and I don't think any decline in the last two decades is anything like as significant (nor am I aware of evidence).

Given the varied entry courses feeding into some STEM degrees (especially Engineering) I always felt entry testing with targeted support for any specific maths weaknesses was a very sensible idea from when I started as an engineering academic, in the mid 80s.

I also think the opposite to Tom, having just before I retired helped design a new Engineering course of the type he likely caricatures. This had very significant input from local Engineering companies (from big to small) who were highly supportive. There was no lack of rigour.. maths assessment and  support started from the first weeks... students just got to do more project style work earlier, alongside engineers from industry, so that when the harder graft of more applied mathematical studies occured later, they understood why it was there and were better motivated. I also think any such courses ingnoring the benefits of modern tools like MATLAB are just plain foolish.

I thought the same. I don't think there has been too much change in the last 15 years. Numbers of students are similar and I don't think there has been significant change in the way maths is being taught in secondary school. I actually think maths teachers in general now work significantly harder than my cohort which should compensate for the shortage. 

If I was going to pick a 15 year time frame I d go for 1990 to 2005, not least because it fits with Martin's point about the increase in the number of students. 

I'm a bit sensitive about "rote learning" but accept that teaching to the exam, mainly due to league tables and performance management became much more prevalent. I don't think modular A levels helped in other subjects and applied maths by rewarding more students who crammed for exams. Due to the spiral nature of the Core modules I think that had less of an impact, so don't think the return to terminal exams will have a major effect here. 

I think there is a balance, and you can certainly say there is some benefit in the activities he described, perhaps I'm set in my ways, but I tend to side with Tom on that one. If there was a decline from  1990 to 2005 wasn't this a period where there was a significant move away from traditional didactic chalk and talk teaching and the more interactive use of technology was heavily promoted?  (and in those days actually funded ☹️) 

Surely its just changed and developed over the years. My mate who did his maths at Imperial ( and phd at Cambridge) when comparing it with my daughter ( who is just finishing her maths masters at Warwick.. couple more weeks to go ) was just surprised at the wealth of information etc she had access to which he never had.The range of modules etc has moved on  and the use of software etc. growing exponentially.

And they still use blackboards and that Japanese chalk which mathematicans love.Blackboards are standard in the maths building and everywhere.The interactive use of technology appears to have been a passing fad.

And I think I've said, IMO not significantly in the last 15 years

Warwick seem to have been particularly reluctant to go back to face to face teaching this year. But I'll just reiterate that on this thread some people are talking about all kids, some about the 50ish% who now go to university or 20% who used to and some about the less than 1% doing maths at a prestigious university. 

Edit. But I do think it raises question I have. Are people complaining about a drop in standards for courses that are really competitive to get on. Oxbridge, Medicine etc.? 

I think that area is where technology has improved things for the students. Outside of lessons/lectures. The access to video clips of explanations in particularly means that some students can make progress on their own. From my perspective the ability to monitor when, what, how much and how successful students were with their homework across 40 schools was really interesting. 

Given my inability to accurately draw circles and some graphs freehand I do think the students benefitted from me getting a projector. 

Pretty much ina classroom setting, if money had been available for training in its use it might have had a positive effect, but I doubt it. I do still have a rather distopian vision of school kids learning maths sat in individual cubicals with a computer, it would certainly solve the shortage of maths teachers. 

I think you are being unrealistic. The general standard of mathematical knowledge in school pupils is pretty low. As a geography teacher I regularly have to re-teach things like percentages to 12-15 year olds. I'm not sure this is actually a problem though because repeated exposure is how pupils consolidate their knowledge.

Whether or not standards have fallen is a harder thing to determine. I think you're focusing in on the upper ability pupils and I'd agree from my own subject that less is required of them now than in the past but I'm less convinced that the same is true across all levels of ability.

Sorry, missed this.

Workings should be mostly algebraic.  When the numbers go in, they go in with units.  Model solutions will work the units through the numeric solution to the result over a few lines.

When marking, I’d expect to see units on the first line of numbers, and a result without units gets no mark - although typically only 1/10 of the marks go to the final result.  No direct penalty for not putting units on the intermediary lines (or even the first line), but indirectly they help markers find justification for more marks in failed numeric workings…

Always pushed the point to the students that working the units through the numerics provides a cross-check on their workings.

This was 1st year stuff, commitment to these house rules would understandably waver in late years for some areas…. But getting the freshers to do it really drills them in units.

I think this is engineer vs physics. Most engineering calcs will have numbers all through - something like this http://www.superbeam.co.uk/sb2stlpr.htm

Yes units at the end vital.

I think emphasising to students that examiners are human and "helping" them give you marks goes a long way to getting marks is a good idea.  Worth actually getting students to mark well laid-out and poorly laid-out right answers themselves to get this across.  

I agree there is a balance.  All we really did on the new course was rearrange the order of the work and involve industry more. Everyone seemed happier and the first cohort all got jobs. In the old style courses I was involved with we had higher failure rates, more transfers and less input from employers. We also had frustrated bright students who wished they understood better at the time why they had learned things, being clearer about how important it was.

I first tried to move to teaching more of our maths content within engineering subjects twenty five years ago (push as well as pull, due to a change in HOD in maths we went from a position of high quality service input from the maths department to research profs with no interest in our students) but was blocked by the professional body. Most of the content was Fourier and Laplace related and was exactly the same, just contextualised. I first learnt control theory, fourier methods and electromagnetism that way in my undergrad physics degree and found it inspiring; my engineering pals at Uni, in contrast, got a dull and clunky traditional approach.

Back in my teaching... I never relied on technology on its own, just used it as another tool in interactive teaching. Machines can't resolve common misunderstandings, good teachers can easily.

I've always known how important good teaching is from my own studies and more importantly those of others I knew who were less 'high flying' but cared and worked hard. I can sympathize with struggling as I failed French O level due to hopeless teaching and a lack of natural language talent; but easily got a B and enjoyed it, with help from a talented occasional tutor. In areas where I was able, I discovered I could teach myself but it was much faster with a good teacher and more sensibly structured.

A university professor of subject X is only exposed on a daily basis to the 1% of the population who study subject X and the 0.01% who become professors of subject X. Unsurprisingly the professors agree that they are academically better than current students without mentioning they were also the best students of their day. A valid comparison for a professor might be "was I better in subject X than the top 1% of current students?". It would be pretty crap for professors to be  teaching classes where they aren't seriously impressed by at least 1% of students.

At least a school teacher of X is exposed to a large proportion or all the ability range for subject X so are better generally informed about the 99% the professor of X does not daily encounter.

"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”

George Orwell, but the idea goes back far longer.

I've been teaching university physics since 1989, and the one constant over that period has been my colleagues complaining about the decline in maths ability in the students of the day. I do think there was some evidence of a significant change around the late 80's/early 90's (Offwidth mentioned one study, I remember another which cross-correlated A level outcomes with the results of a standardised test), and that coincided with, and was one motivation for, the move to four year courses for maths, physics and engineering.

But I'd agree that there's not been a significant change in standards in the last 15 years (or perhaps longer).  Looking at what my own son & daughter did in A level maths (in our local state school), it all seemed appropriately challenging and well taught (with the possible exception of statistics, but that's a systemic problem with the subject).  

That isn't to say there won't be changes in emphasis, and that's as it should be.  I have never been as good at integration as I was when I was 18 - but now on the rare occasions when I need it, I'll get Mathematica to do them for me.

 Not my daughters experience .. all face to face.  

That entire comment relates to England not the UK. Scotland has its own exams and a national exam authority.

I've got nothing against more projects in engineering courses, I've got something against this specific project. Engineers should be asked to make a functional machine using proper engineering materials and rated on how well it works. This course asked them to make a needlessly complex 'heath robinson' machine out of completely inappropriate materials and rated them on a report with introspection on teamwork and hand waving because none of the machines had any chance of working reliably. I think using MATLAB in the maths course is an excellent idea - but I don't think the maths department were the right choice to teach it. They can't program for sh*t.

I wasn't actually caricaturing the engineering course.  The stuff I said was literally true. Maybe your course is a lot better.

I think that means she has been lucky. My niece only has two hours face to face a week and all of her second year exams are online, and that was common amongst her friends. Even within the maths department I was talking a friends daughter at Christmas, she had done her third year in Grenoble and was complaining about her lack of face to face lectures compared to her time in France and her sister at Sheffield. 

Secondary maths teachers questioning how on earth some kids achieved their alledged KS2 results has been a constant for me. 

GCSE's were first examined in '1986/7, coincidence? Not sure nationally the percentage of kids who did O levels, but in my school it was less than 20%

Some would use more, some less, having the freedom to make that professional decision isn't as widespread as it should be. 

But how long before someone alledges they can? Successmaker was claiming it could, for special needs kids, in the 1990's

Don't get me wrong I think good teaching is very important, but for secondary school results and league tables, good students (and to a lesser extent parents) are far more important than good teachers. If you give me the make up of a schools cohort regarding gender, ethnicity, KS2 results, parental education, attendance etc. I'm confident of prediction their overall results without any knowledge of the teaching staff. 

That sound very like me, although I didn't get a tutor for my French O level, so got a grade considerably lower than in any of my other subjects. After a year on duolingo during lockdowns got 100% on three sections of GCSE German, admittedly my papers were marked by Mrs J who is fluent. 

I don't. Having done a little study in human evolution and anthropology, it has always been pretty clear to me that homo sapiens sapiens is homo sapiens sapiens, whenever they were born, and that those born 10k years ago were just as smart as we are. They applied their intelligence to solve different problems, and had different knowledge, more applicable to their lives, but they were just as smart. And their 'scientific' observation was very astute, allowing them to develop technology such as metallurgy, pottery, agriculture, etc. Without resorting to Google, or even a library, for the answer.

Possibly due to the number of students taking a module and the lecture theatre sizes. I think if it’s less than a 100 students then it’s face to face or something like that. 

It’s tough course at Warwick , very demanding..

My daughter found the exam online system beneficial and easy to switch to. 

Yep, I think that is the reason, although the limit is more like 50

Her testing positive for covid during freshers week (2020)and then be forced to isolate in what t was effectively a broom cupboard for two weeks was a demanding start to Uni. life not sure how I would have coped at that age. 

Good to here that from a student perspective, I only here my brother and his colleagues moaning about it from the other side of the fence. 

How much of that is chicken and egg? The makeup of an entry cohort is sadly too much  decided by reputation in England but that comes from past success based on good management and mainly good teachers .....and that from having good intakes with supportive parents ...etc.

My life was changed by quite a few teachers despite being bright: good ones who inspired (especially in one case.... my Physics teacher.... who even went out of his way to help facilitate a graduate apprentice scheme for me in a local major company) and some nasty  (I made sure I aced any exam where a teacher unfairly put me down), even if my fabulous family support was more important (and yes the rural school cohort was important with a substantial middle class intake).

My dad was, in his last of his many jobs, a judu peripatetic who specialised in providing a very different form of inspiration, helping turn round lives in much rougher schools in the large local town. Some of those kids he inspired became my friends... one is effectively an adopted brother, a retired successful engineering manager, from a school background where kids only went to the sixth form to repeat failed CSEs. The school peripatetics he worked with each had their own list of successes from music and sport, in schools from educational ghettos where kids were largely written off.

Things are much better these days but we still have a long way to go before all kids get as equal a shot as is manageable for the education they deserve. Finland shows us it can be done.

A friend said rural schools are the only truly comprehensive schools as they take pupils from all parts of several villages rather than just the good or bad parts of a city.

Have you looked at the details of the Finnish model? I just can't see it happening here as it would require too big a cultural change and too much investment initially at least. The Scottish Govt has experimented with cherry picking bits of it (the cheap bits) but I don't think it's the sort of thing you can gain much from just cherry picking.

Worth remembering that not all the modules are exam based , my daughter had a habit of selecting the exam ones. 

I know it's sadly a pipe dream for the UK  but what a dream... equity, sensible levels of workload for the kids, respect for the professionals and still significant overall success. 

I'm at low ebb right now with the state of things in Scottish education. We've had more than a decade of continual change that has left us (mostly) in a worse position than before with the added bonus of a seriously disgruntled teaching profession. We're now promised a review of secondary education but I have no faith that this will deliver any meaningful improvement. I still love the job but the system is broken.

They have a point, but in the North Lakes we have some kids sitting on buses for up to 2 hours a day, to avoid going to the nearest secondary. 

It might be different in big cities, but in my experience in several schools the current teaching has very little impact on the reputation. I've taught in allegedly outstanding schools and ones in special measures. IMO the overall quality of teaching was very similar in all of them. By far the easiest way of improving your teaching seems to be to move schools. 

Every school I've taught in has teachers that are brilliant with certain individuals/groups. There are also a small minority of teacher who really should find another profession. Obviously some teachers are better at their job than others, I think I have posted before that parents should probably be far more concerned about who is teaching their kids than which school they are going to. I suppose my point is that find 50 inspirational teachers in a school of 60 staff is about as likely as find 50 who are feckless. 

I can relate to all of that, but those individual successes don't translate into a meaningful impact on the metrics by which the school is measured. Others schools will have dozens of similar successes without the need for an inspirational teacher. 

Than 40/50 years ago definitely. Than 5/10 years ago probably, but I'm not as confident and there are worrying signs. 

Virtually all teachers I know in their 40's and 50's say the same thing? I suppose the way things seem to be changing in the profession this won't much of a problem in 20 years time as there will be very few teachers of this age 

2 hours! Poor buggers, the crapiness of a commute whilst still a child.

That is really no different from most jobs. The impact of technology has led to considerable changes in all areas of life over the last 10/15 years. The counter point being it’s not unusual.change now happens at pace.

Not quite sure which point you are replying to.

If it about the use of IT in schools I'd say that change is happening at a much slower pace in education over the last 10 years, mainly due to lack of investment/funding.

If its about the average length of a teaching career shortening significantly I fully accept the days of people doing the same job for 40 years are long gone. Except in exceptional circumstances do people really want teachers in their late 60's teaching their kids? My first head of department suggested that after a year of teacher training, if I was willing to listen and reflect, I would progress quite quickly over 4 to 6 years of my career. Perhaps things have changed significantly and that time frame has shortened significantly, but if it hasn't the majority of teachers, in shortage subjects, are leaving before they reach anything like their potential.