Time to Start Again

Hi All,

With the election of a new state government in QLD, there is an opportunity to have another go at reforming the assessment procedures that are implemented by the QSA in the senior school. Even with the national curriculum, QSA will still be in charge of assessment.

High on the list of changes, especially in science and mathematics should be the reintroduction of a marks based system where there is a simple system to determine the rank of each student, ie. Add up the weighted marks. We presently have an extremely complicated system which nobody seems to understand, and is very time consuming for teachers. In addition students cannot ask the question “what is this test or assignment worth” so cannot allocate time accordingly.

In addition to reverting to marks, like the rest of the world, we also need to reduce the importance of assignments, EEI’s, ERT etc on assessment. EEI’s can be excellent motivational tools for students but in most cases we destroy this advantage by insisting upon massive write-ups. A little writing is fine but Physics, Maths and Chemistry must not be come de-facto English classes. Also as assignments have become a large (but unknown) fraction of the assessment, and that teachers cannot determine who actually does the assignment (parents, tutors or the student), our system is very unfair to students from a lower socio-economic background.

There are many other things to do, but to get the new government to act will require us to demonstrate that there is a groundswell of opposition to current practices. We must mobilise Teachers, Parents and University academics and hopefully get the Unions on board.

As a first step I am organising some meetings of teachers in Cairns Townsville and Brisbane in the next month. Dates and venues to be advised shortly.

Peter

Teacher Meeting in Brisbane

Maths, Physics and Chemistry Teacher Meeting

Hosted in Brisbane by

Prof Peter Ridd
Department of Physics
School of Engineering and Physical Sciences
James Cook University

10am to 12 noon, 21 November
James Cook University offices,
349 Queen St, Brisbane

Are you frustrated by the complex and time consuming assessment methods in the new QSA syllabi in Maths, Chemistry and Physics?

Do you think that there is now an over-emphasis on writing tasks in Physics and Chemistry?
Will Queensland have the same assessment schemes under the forthcoming National Curriculum?

Do you want to do something to improve the situation?



In Western Australia, similar syllabi to those now being implemented in Queensland were discarded after concerted organized action by teachers, parents and universities. This is an opportunity to be heard.

RSVP (for organizational purposes) to peter.ridd@jcu.edu.au

Teacher Tests

Premier Bligh should be congratulated for her plan to introduce basic tests for teachers entering the work force. It is sad that it is necessary, but we may as well face the reality that there is a small but significant percentage of graduates of education courses from our tertiary institutions that cannot do basic Maths and English.

There are two questions for which I cannot find a good answer. First, why is there any opposition to the Premiers plan? The teachers unions are vehemently opposed. Secondly, how have we got to the point that some students with 3 years of tertiary study in education can emerge without mastery knowledge of basic arithmetic and fractions. How can they possibly have been allowed to graduate?

Teacher Forum Minutes

Below are my minutes from the teacher forum. We got a reasonable crowd for a tuesday night in the middle of the exam period.

Note that this is my interpretation, reps from the AIP, RACI and EA will be releasing their own version in due course. If you were there and I missed something or got something wrong, please make a comment.

What is the plan from here?
I would like to do something similar in Brisbane. Townsville is too small and too far away from where it all happens.

Maths and Science Teacher Forum


16 June 2009

Minutes



Attendance

Professor Peter Ridd, Physics Department, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, JCU,
Professor Richard Keene, Royal Australian Chemical Institute (also JCU)
Mr John Daicopoulos, Australian Institute of Physics (also JCU)
Dr Govinda Pandey, Engineers Australia (Atlantic Civil Engineers and JCU)

Prof Yinghe He, HOS, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, JCU

Also present were 25 teachers, and approximately 15 others including parents and other JCU academic staff.

The meeting convened at 7:00 pm and concluded at 8:30 pm with other discussions continuing until 9:30 pm.

The meeting was opened with short preamble talks by Prof Ridd and Prof Keene.

Prof Ridd stated that the aim of the forum was to find what were the views of teachers on a wide range of topics that affect teachers and the teaching of Science and Maths. He stated that the system could be changed if it is necessary, but that it would require organization. He gave the example of PLATOWA (http://www.platowa.com/) which is an organization that was recently responsible for the removal of the Outcomes Based Education system in WA.

Prof Richard Keene said he thought the new syllabi, if implemented well, could result in a considerable improvement in the enthusiasm of students for Chemistry. He was less sure whether the practical implementation would match the promise.

The following three sets of questions were presented by Prof Ridd to guide discussion.

(1) QSA Syllabi

•How well are they working?
•What are the advantages and disadvantages of the new systems of teaching and assessment?
•Are the assessment systems a significant increase in workload, and if so, are they worth the extra effort?
•Do they prepare students better for University?
•Do they prepare students better for non-tertiary futures?


(2) University Entrance Standards/prerequisites


•Has the lowering of university entrance standards affected enrolments and motivation of students in Physics, Maths and Chemistry at school?
•Should universities allow entrance to courses for students with deficient academic backgrounds, and if so, how should it be done?



(3) Teacher Education, Preparation, Retention and Professional Development


•Are tertiary teacher training courses preparing teachers for their careers?
•What improvements could be made?
•How do we get more Maths and Science teachers into the profession?

Comments
A wide range of views were expressed and the following is an attempt to capture the major points

(1) QSA Syllabi

Almost all teachers were of the view that the new QSA syllabi had some merit but that the assessment schemes were extremely time-consuming and not necessarily more accurate than previous systems.

A teacher in favour of the new assessment system expressed the opinion that with practice the time taken gets smaller.

Some teachers were clearly angry at the time imposts of the new system.

Most teachers did not think that rating students against criteria was a worthwhile method of assessment. Those that were in favour of using criteria stated that this system can guide and enhance teaching.

The use of EEI’s and NEI’s was also stated by most teachers to be very time consuming but a significant number of science teachers expressed a view that some of these tasks were very beneficial to student attitudes to the subject and helped with motivation.

There was general concern that because the EEI’s were very time consuming, it was likely that not all teachers would be able to make these experiences particularly valuable for the students. If this happened the EEI’s would be more harmful than beneficial to motivation.

There was concern that it was difficult to do effective EEI’s in schools with poor facilities, already high work loads, and/or teachers who were not necessarily experts in Physics or Chemistry. This was likely to be the case in remote schools.

One view expressed about the new syllabi was that it was too early to tell whether they would work better than the old system and we should wait and see what happens before making an adverse judgement.

Excessive use of written tasks was viewed as a problem for the Maths and Physics syllabi. One comment (after the meeting) was that the new system greatly favours girls who are more likely to be better at written tasks.




(2) University Entrance Standards/prerequisites

· There was general agreement that lowered prerequisite standards for university admission were discouraging students from choosing particularly Maths C at the end of year 10.
· Ridd stated that it was a weak position for an academic to argue about the Physics and Maths C syllabi when these subjects are not required by any university for entry. (JCU Physics presently only require Maths C or Physics. No other University Physics or Engineering course requires either subject).
· There was concern that reinstating these prerequisites may exclude some potentially very good students from Engineering and hard science courses. It was felt that if some of the prerequisites were reintroduced there would have to be an alternative, and possibly more time consuming, avenue for student entry.
· Academics stated that it would be very difficult to reintroduce more prerequisites unless most universities, especially UQ, were to do so simultaneously. It could be very risky for a single university to go-it-alone.
· A view was expressed by an engineer (not an academic) that times had changed and it was no longer necessary for engineers to have such a rigorous mathematical training. This view was not shared by other (academic) engineers present.

(3) Teacher Education, Preparation, Retention and Professional Development

There was general dissatisfaction with both the number and quality of new teachers. The numbers of teachers training in Maths and Physics is not anywhere near the requirements to replace those teachers leaving the profession. It was stated that in some schools a very small fraction of Maths teachers could be described as “qualified” to teach maths and significant remedial effort needed to be made to bring some teachers up to standard.

A JCU Education Faculty academic pointed out that for secondary teachers, it was the role of the academics in Science and Maths to ensure that students had sufficient training in the disciplines that were to be taught. It was also stated that there was very little time available in a BEd or Dip Ed course for training in the teaching of specific disciplines.

The very low OP entry for Primary School teachers was thought to be a serious problem and it was stated that there was no longer a guarantee that Primary School Teacher graduates knew sufficient Maths to teach year 7 mathematics (fraction etc).

Ontario Canada was given as an example of how, with effort, it is possible to attract good people into teaching. Apparently Ontario does not have a shortage of Maths and Physics teachers.

Prof Yinghe He said that in China, the government strongly encouraged good students into teaching with a range of incentives including scholarships and fee waivers.

There seemed to be general agreement that, more than anything else, good teachers are the key to a good education system.

Maths and Science teacher forum invitation

If anybody is interested, with reps from AIP RACI and EA, we are running a forum to discuss new QSA Syllabi and other problems facing teachers of maths and science. See below.

If you have a problem then please come along and say what you think.

IF you can't come along then please email Peter Ridd or leave a post on this Blog







Maths, Physics, Chemistry, other Senior Science Teachers
and interested parents

Meeting to discuss new QSA Syllabi and other problems facing teachers of maths and science.

7 pm Tuesday 16 June 2009
Room 201 Maths/Physics Building DB017

Organized by
Prof Peter Ridd, Department of Physics, JCU and AIP

Facilitated by
Prof Richard Keene, Department of Chemistry, JCU and RACI
John Daicopoulos, AIP, Editor of Australian Journal of Physics
Dr Govinda Pandey, Engineers Australia, JCU, and Atlantic Civil


This meeting to be run jointly by representatives of Engineers Australia (EA), the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) and the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) is aimed at providing a forum for discussing ways to improve the delivery of Maths and Science at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels.

Topics for discussion will include, but not be restricted to.

(1) The new QSA syllabus
(2) Problems with teacher numbers, training and retention
(3) Effects of the lack of university prerequisites on student numbers at high school

EA, RACI and AIP representatives will use the input from the forum to make a representation to the government of suggested improvements to our education system.

If you want to have your opinion heard, please come to the meeting.

Enquiries to Peter Ridd 0747814978 peter.ridd@jcu.edu.au


Teachers from other disciplines are also welcome

Education in Queensland II

It is now well known that Qld has done very badly in the latest national tests. We came second last, scraping home just ahead of the Northern Territory. In addition, in international comparisons Queensland is way behind the top rank players such as Taiwan. In maths, Taiwan has 45% of it students in the ‘advanced’ bracket whereas Qld managed just 3%.

To her credit, Premier Anna Bligh commissioned Geoff Masters of the Australian Council for Education Research to investigate the reason for Qld’s poor showing. Unfortunately for the Premier, an important finding of the report indicates that the usual excuse of the state government, that Queensland students are a little younger than their interstate counterparts, is not entirely valid. According to Masters, in the 1960’s and 70’s Queensland was on top of the league table in Mathematics, and our students were just as young in those days.

Although the Masters report concentrated mostly on basic numeracy and literacy in the lower school years, the problems in the high schools are probably just as bad. Masters hinted at this with the comment relating to junior high school maths “the decline in the government system between 1964 and 1995 was larger than in any other state and has been estimated as the equivalent of ‘more than two years of learning’”.

So how did we go from first to last? Firstly it is not only the fault of the present Labor government - the decline has been continuous for decades and occurred during a succession of Coalition and Labor state administrations.

One of the main problems with the Qld system is the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA). The QSA must not be confused with Education Queensland. The former is in control of the syllabus; the later is responsible for the nuts and bolts of running schools. By developing the syllabi, the QSA is responsible for what is taught in every school in Queensland, both private and public, and has developed some of the most crazy syllabi and assessment methods in the world. The QSA has consistently denied that any problems exist despite being told by University teachers that a significant decline in standard is evident in first year university students. The QSA thinks it has developed the most advanced education system in the world. The national testing system and the Masters Report has been a nasty shock for the idealogues of the QSA though they still deny they are partly responsible.

QSA syllabi are characterised by a very limited description of what is to be taught, extremely complicated and subjective assessment schemes, and an overemphasis on assignments especially in subjects such as Maths, Physics and Chemistry. The new Queensland syllabi completely de-emphasize content and facts. According to modern education theory, you don’t actually have to know anything; you only have know how to find out information.

It is interesting to look at Western Australia that introduced a similar system to Queensland a few years ago. Following a public outcry and a campaign supported by the West Australian newspaper and a community organisation called PLATOWA, the WA government did a complete U turn and have reintroduced a more traditional approach to their syllabi. The education debacle in WA was one reason for the fall of the Labor Government in that State

I am quite sure that the Bligh government is completely committed to improving our education system, but I am worried that the smooth talking education bosses in the QSA will deflect attention away from themselves.

If that is the case, there is only one thing to be done. Schools must change over to the International Baccalaureate system. They can then avoid the second rate QSA syllabi. It is interesting to note that Education Queensland’s Elite academies have already done this and so have many good solid public and private schools.

Education in Queensland

In the last Qld election campaign it was notable that education issues barely rated a mention despite Qld’s appalling showing in the latest national tests. We came second last, scraping home just ahead of the Northern Territory. Worse, in international comparisons Queensland is way behind the top rank players such as Taiwan. In maths, Taiwan has 45% of it students in the ‘advanced’ bracket whereas Qld managed just 3%.

So what needs to be done? Fortunately we can make huge improvements without spending an extra cent. The main problem is that the Qld education system has been hijacked by ideologues that have developed some of the craziest syllabi in the world. It is the syllabi that are broken and which must be fixed, and it is the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA), supported by the education faculties of universities, that must be blamed for them.

One of many aspects of our syllabi that must be fixed is the system of assessment. It is fundamentally unfair to the students and excessively time consuming for teachers.

Presently in Qld marks are banned in Secondary Schools. No longer do you for example get a mark out of 20 for your assignment, out of 30 for practical write-ups and out of 50 for the exam. No longer are teachers allowed, or even able to add up the marks to get an overall mark from which grades are determined. Instead, an extended criteria sheet has to be written by the teachers for every item of an exam and for every assignment. A letter grade from A to E is given for each of these items, but here is where the problem lies. How do you combine all these letters to get a final grade? A complicated and tortuous scheme has to be used by teachers that relies on what is termed in the syllabus as a “holistic judgement”. That boils down to a guess based on gut feeling. Pages and pages of the syllabi are devoted to how this guess is done and is the subject of endless debate amongst teachers, moderation panels and even within the QSA.

The irony is that despite the banning of numerical marks to get the final grade for each subject; a purely mathematical system is used to obtain the eventual OP score This system is based on the ranking of each student in each subject of his or her school group. The teachers must provide the QSA with a number that has been magically derived from whole bunch of letters that have been combined in an undefined and unknowable fashion. This final number goes into the QSA computer and is combined with some solid statistical procedures involving means and standard deviations to provide, guess what? A number - because in the end, that is what the universities and employers want.

The farcical assessment system has problems with fairness and transparency and may be open to legal challenge by some disgruntled lawyer parent of a student who has not done as well as expected. Another concern is the sheer amount of effort that teachers have to expend on implementing the system. Criteria sheets are often pages in length. Determining final grades can take days. Lack of an objective system means they are always open to questioning by unhappy students, and worse still, irate parents. We are having trouble enough keeping good teachers, especially in hard mathematics and the numerical sciences, and the last thing needed is to waste vast amounts of their valuable time implementing a complex but silly assessment system.

A second problem with our assessment system is the gross over-use of long writing assignments even in maths, physics and chemistry. Any parent of a high school child dreads those periods when a batch of assignments are due. The child may literally burn the midnight oil for a few weeks, aimlessly looking at web sites and going over multiple drafts. As a parent you are faced with the dilemma. Remembering that teenagers know everything about everything and hate taking advice from their parents, do you attempt to help your child and totally destroy household harmony? Or do you do nothing and pretty well guarantee an inferior result?

The real problem with assignments is that teachers can never be sure who has done, or helped with the assignment and by how much. Was it the parent, the tutor, or the student? I know of quite a few of my undergraduate university students who were on a nice little earner helping with, or actually doing, assignments for children of well-to-do parents.

The overuse of assignments discriminates against children who do not have good support at home. How can the child of a family whose parents have poor education themselves or who take little interest in education, hope to compete.

Another problem with excessive use of assignments is that it is a major disincentive for many students, particularly those with a maths bent who often dislike excessive writing. Labouring for hours each night writing reports can destroy the joy of understanding and being successful at solving problems in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Additionally, if students do not get help at home or from a private tutor, it is unlikely that the teacher will have enough time to help improve with writing skills, the development of which is the main object of assignments. The net result is that there is little improvement in writing skills.

Finally, many of the open-ended assignments that teachers set require skill levels that are way beyond their students. Students are expected to write assignments on esoteric topics they know almost nothing about. Some require levels of expertise that I would not expect from third year university students. They should instead be getting a thorough understanding of the basic concepts and techniques of the subject. I was recently asked by a colleague at James Cook University a question about an electronic circuit diagram and after a few hours cogitating about the question I enquired why he was entering this line of research. He replied that it was actually his daughter’s year 12 physics assignment.

The QSA has shown over the years that it treats academics like me with disdain even though we are a major end-user of what the education system produces. It is therefore up to others to do something about our broken education system. I have mentioned problems with assessment but this is only a fraction of the problem, albeit indicative of the lunacy of which the QSA is capable. It is now time for teachers to stand up and be counted by protesting against the time-consuming and unfair assessment systems. Their interstate counterparts, and teachers in better performing systems overseas, do not have to tolerate such a pointless imposition on their time. They need to lobby the unions, moderation panels, school principals, Queensland Education, and the independent school organizations.

But most importantly, the Minister of Education needs to remind the QSA that it exists to serve the students and their parents. Parliament represents the parents and Parliament created the QSA. The QSA has failed the Parliament leaving our children exposed in a global economy with weak, low educational outcomes.

I urge the new Parliament to launch an Inquiry into the condition of education in our schools. The QSA should not be at liberty to experiment on our children with the latest trendy educational theory.