[Informatics] Mathematics and ICT

Wed Jul 19 19:28:44 AEST 2017

Yes Robert, there is good research that teachers are often too quick to supply an answer, rather than teach students "how to work towards this answer”. The magic happens when they are uncomfortable .. I do recall some year 12’s groaning loudly in frustration that I am hiding the all-important keys of knowledge by not promptly detailing the correct answer. How do others deal with this?

Slightly off topic, I enjoy waving this about when school administrators talk about grinding a SMART axe. Great to keep on file for those pesky performance appraisals. Instead of SMART Goals, think of HARD Goals, these move mountains 
Heartfelt—you’ve got to have an emotional attachment to your goal; it has to scratch an existential itch.
Animated—goals need to be motivated by a vision, picture or movie that plays over and over in your mind.
Required—it needs to feel so urgently necessary that you have no other choice but to start acting on them right here, right now.
Difficult—goals need to drag you out of your comfort zone, activating your senses and attention.
from https://www.leadershipiq.com/why-do-so-many-goals-end-up-in-failure/ <https://www.leadershipiq.com/why-do-so-many-goals-end-up-in-failure/>

--
Roland GESTHUIZEN
http://about.me/rgesthuizen

> On 19 Jul 2017, at 12:26 pm, Robert Hind <robert at yinnar.com> wrote:
> 
> On the issue of student persistence:
>  
> Several years ago I attended a maths PD session after work and we were told of research that showed quite clearly that
> 1. our Australian students had very short persistence times when solving problems and
> 2. this was essentially our fault as teachers because we tended to butt in and provide the solution far too quickly.
>  
> Certainly this is partly a result of the crowded curriculum and partly a result of (community) expectations that we should teach the students "how to do it".
>  
> Robert Hind
> Ex Traralgon and Ashwood
> Retired
> 
> From: informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Garth, Lucas A
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 July 2017 11:35 AM
> To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Informatics] Mathematics and ICT
> 
> Hi Robert
> You could use this resource using Python whose turtle app is nearly exactly the same as Logo just with a few tweaks – but then gives the option of an extension to a future general purpose programming language.
>  
> https://hourofpython.trinket.io/a-visual-introduction-to-python#/welcome/an-hour-of-code <https://hourofpython.trinket.io/a-visual-introduction-to-python#/welcome/an-hour-of-code>
>  
> I know it’s not the point but it’s where we will probably go with our Year 7s in the future.
>  
> On the example of the Year 7 “not being good at coding”, an issue is possibly that students aren’t as great at problem solving because we as teachers do too much of the work for them.  Because we have lost resilience in our students to persevere and “find the right answer” in the time honoured manner, often because of the curriculum crowding mentioned here, we can become tempted to just spoon feed workings and answers to our students. More’s the pity.
>  
> Lucas Garth
> Lalor Secondary College
>  
> From: informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Robert Timmer-Arends
> Sent: Tuesday, 18 July 2017 6:26 PM
> To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List <informatics at edulists.com.au>
> Subject: Re: [Informatics] Mathematics and ICT
>  
> Hello Chay
>  
> I teach Y7 Maths and the first thing I want to say was how angry I was at seeing that bullet point creep in when the curriculum changed from AusVELS to VicCurric. Not only does it further crowd the curriculum as you say, but it also adds yet another explicit checkbox that has to be covered that should be a teaching technique, not a thing to be taught in itself.
> Last year I used Microworlds (slightly dated but for various reasons to do with teaching Maths rather than programming, a better option, and its the Logo language and directional turtle that is the important thing, not so much the environment). Anyhow, the application is Geometry. I started with fd, rt, showed them how the turtle carried a pen (pd, pu) and then challenged them to draw a square of 100 units  As each finished, I upped the ante by asking them to draw an equilateral triangle (no other triangle was allowed), and as each finished I added another side. By the end of a period all had achieved at least a triangle, but many were well beyond. We then talked about patterns. (For the fast learners, the final challenge was a circle.)
> Then I showed them repeat, then procedures (or actually, teaching the turtle 'how to'), ... The final challenge after two lessons was for them to write a procedure(s) which would draw a honeycomb. Lots of algorithmic thinking without the word being mentioned. More importantly, lots of concrete geometric problem-solving.
> Toward the end of last term I tried Scratch - nowhere near as good for this sort of thing, so I'm switching back to Microworlds.
> Finally, is Logo a 'general purpose language' ? Frankly, I don't care. I think having a statement like that in the Maths curriculum is BS, especially at Year 7. No offence VCAA Maths people, but what were you thinking???
> BTW, for Computing teachers, one of the other things that's come to light, was when starting work with Scratch one of my students said 'I'm not good at coding'. Alarms bells ringing. By putting it so explicitly in the curriculum (maybe through DigiTech at primary school), students are being taught to 'code' as opposed to being taught how to solve problems (which just happen to include coding), and as early as primary school we may already be switching them off! DTLV please take note.
>  
> Sorry for the rant.
>  
> Regards
> Robert T-A
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: Chay Ly Cheng <mailto:chaylycheng at gmail.com>
>> To: Year 11 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List <mailto:yr11it at edulists.com.au> ; Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List <mailto:informatics at edulists.com.au>
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 1:00 PM
>> Subject: [Informatics] Mathematics and ICT
>>  
>> Hi, 
>> 
>> Just throwing a question out there - if you are a math teacher as well (or familiar with it).
>>  
>> The math curriculum indicates that students are to design and implement algorithm using a general purpose language. Level of knowledge varies from Year 7 - 10.
>>  
>> I was wondering if there are any schools currently doing this in math classes?
>> Or is it specifically in Digiitech/Computing Classes.
>>  
>> If it is being implemented in Math class, may you please give me a run down on what is covered and 'done' for this part of the "already overcrowded math curriculum"?
>>  
>> Thanks.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> -- 
>> Kind regards
>>  
>> Chay Ly Cheng :)
>>  
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