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New UK Initiative - Make Science Easier
An anonymous reader writes "Examiners in the UK have been told to make science 'easier'. From next year 70% of the paper must consist of 'low demand' questions in the form of multiple choice or similar answers. Currently this type of question makes up some 55% of the test. When the recent A level results were announced, with even more students in the UK getting A grades than ever before, educators were congratulating themselves on improved teaching. 'Jim Sinclair, the Joint Council for Qualifications director, emphatically denied that the changes would lead to a rise in the number achieving grade C - the top grade in the foundation tier. Future results would depend on how the marks were allocated. Dr Sinclair added that the changes would help to stop children being turned off by science.' Even still, it's hard to see the benefit from future science students passing by guessing."
I can't believe he would possibly think this would attract people to science! I very nearly didn't do Physics at A-Level because GCSE science was too easy. They watered down stuff so much that you couldn't possibly reason with it. You could only solve a limited range of problems with the mathematics available and none of them were remotely interesting.
I was sad to see the same was true in A-Level Chemistry. A-Level Chemistry isn't really science, it's more like religion. You learn an enormous table of facts with some spirtual-esc "electron cloud" explanation for it. There's no way to work through it from first principles - there is no understanding and a vague promise it would come some day.
I am convinced that the way to get people in to science is to get down to brass-tax much earlier on; get down to the real physics of what's going on. In my opinion, there is no reason that the bright kids could not be walked through a solution to the Schrodinger Equation's solution for the Hydrogen atom energy levels at sixteen. There is no reason you can't teach them basic calculus either. There's no reason why you can't walk them through how to derive the equations for circular motion.
You see, it's not the details of the mathematics really matters at this early stage but an appreciation how the solution is arrived at. It's seeing that we take a fundamental postulate, which they would establish by experiment in class, and run with it and here's the physics that we come up with. In short, it's showing them that with rigorous application of the scientific method and a few years of training on the mathematics, that all of this interesting stuff can be arrived at with nothing more than a pencil and paper.
That, my friends, is how you really inspire! You do not inspire anybody by making a intellectual Mount Everest in to a word-search.
Simon
Whilst the examiners in question may be living and working in the UK, there is no such thing as a "UK" exam: Scotland has a completely different examination system, run by a different exam board. Admittedly, the Times article just talks about GCSEs (exam standard in England and Wales at age 16) and never makes any comparison to the Scottish equivalent (fair and balanced reporting? the Times? Tories don't care about Scotland!)
Most people in England seem to wonder why so many Scots want independence.... but don't know the difference between UK (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland), Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), and England (a catch all, that normally means whatever combination of the above countries happens to be convienient at the time).
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
"There is no royal road to geometry." (Or science.)
Dumb science down, and you get dumb scientists. What we need is a way to make it more interesting -- and show students how, for example, conducting an experiment or programming a simulation on a computer can be fun. Once they're interested -- and the mathematics involved have a clear purpose rather than being just rote memorization of arcane formulae -- Science suddenly becomes something they *want* to do.
There may be no "royal road" to science -- but there's nothing saying that we can't make the trip more enjoyable, and encourage more travelers at the same time.
As a side benefit, science is a great way to teach critical thinking (which IMHO is the whole point of education).
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Question 1) Schroedinger was famous for his:
a. Hat?
b. Cat?
c. Kat?
see the physics GCSE paper here: http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/exampaper.pdf
several comments (and food for thought):
1. multiple choice questions are proving popular for one reasons only - they can be marked by computer and are quicker and cheaper to process because of this.
2. unless you think that people are getting a lot more intelligent in a couple of generations then you must assume that either (a) the exams are easier or (b) that students are being thought only how to pass exams (this is the view held by several teacher friends of mine)
3. my first university course (which was a 3 year course in the late 80s) is now a 4 year course - this additional year is used as a remedial course to get students back up to the level they used to be at. universities certainly do not believe that more students are doing much better then they ever have previously.
4. schools are busy reducing the number of students doing maths (and further maths), chemistry and physics as much as possible as in general students get lower grades - in turn this lowers the performance of the school as a whole in the league tables. in other words it is hard to get people to do their jobs properly when their wages rely on them doing it badly.
5. employers have also been lamenting the quality of school leavers in many subjects - maths, spelling, english.
its a pretty dismal state of affairs in the UK, and it seems to be repeating itself in the EU and in the colonies.
i think much of the blame must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the government who seem to delight in meddling in the schools at every opportunity. with the international baccalaureates being introduced soon who knows what will happen next?
I had a Biology professor that could make multiple choice science tests that actually tested scientific reasoning skills (not just memory skills). He'd present the results of a single experiment and then offer a multiple statements that might (or might not) be derivable from the outcome of the experiment. The devilish part (and the part that tested reasoning versus memory) was that many of the statements would be true, but NOT derivable from the experiment. Students that memorized facts and picked the true statements based on their memory of those facts would get the answer wrong.
Of course, I suspect that the Brits want to turn science into a set of dumb facts, and that would be a shame because it misses the entire point of science.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Just hand out a pass or a fail. Don't give grades. That's my theory. If you really are going to give grades, please don't dumb down the tests. Keep the tests real but adjust the scores upwards so that the median gives the students encouragement. One major difference between the UK and the USA is that, in the UK, above 50% is considered OK. In the USA, anything below 80% is starting to look not so good. So I dumbed down my tests in the USA to increase the scores instead of merely adjusting the scores upwards by a fixed percentage. In retrospect, I think this was the wrong thing to do. Anyway, the problem with dumbing down the tests or merely upping the scores is that the really good students shine less.
The example test given is horribly stupid. It is a mixup of easy trivial answers, with a few where arguably more than one answer is correct, and some are outrigth wrong.
for example, you're asked what kind of radiation will damage eyes and cause skin-cancer. Now obviously they want UV as the "rigth" answer, but infact xray will *also* cause that in the rigth dosis. so both are correct.
Or how about this gem: (question 19)
What is the advantage of using digital signals in radio-broadcast ?
a) digital signals travel quicker than analogue.
b) digital signals carry more information than analogue.
c) analogue signals travel more quickly than digital.
d) analogue signals can carry more information than digital.
The "correct" answer is a), digital signals travel quicker. Which is complete bullshit. A analogue or digital signal sent down say an electrical cable will both travel at the speed of C in that material, simple as that. Boggles the mind.
If this shows the competence of the teachers, no wonder the pupils end up ignorant of science....
If both of your mom (and dad?) are not 110% into it, then it could be worse than just keeping her in school. Not only that, but your sister needs to be into it too. It takes a lot of hard work not to slack off when you are at home.
My parents got 'homeschooling fever' when I hit high school, my siblings are all a lot younger. I did it through high school, they did it anywhere from first grade all the way through to the end of high school. It works if everyone is on board. At the start, I was not, but that's a long story. As a high schooler I taught myself more than my mom taught me. Which is good, you comprehend a lot more that way.
So long and short: it works, but make sure you are all on the same page and on board with the idea. It ain't cheap. The best math is probably Saxon Math. A lot of home schoolers go with the Abeka system of educational materials but there are others like Bob Jones and such. You may find yourself off better keeping her in school and tutoring her on the side.
So what I hear a lot about is NOT teaching better but increasing grades and look where that has gotten the US. A generation of spoon fed kids who get pissed when they realize the college they are in tries to challenge them. I graduated HS back in '98 and the shift was well under way then, more benefits for the 'slow' kids, less for the gifted. If you are 'slow' (don't read handicapped here), you get special teachers and special dummed down classes for you, study hall breaks and whatnot, then you are rewarded for having a 3.5+ GPA. Then there are other people (not saying we are gifted) but worked our asses off taking advanced math and physics in high school. We get 3.5+ or higher but it doesn't matter because the curve is killed and weighted classes didn't exist. Luckily we have ACT and SAT to even things out just a little but because the classes were dummed down we are unprepared for the ACT/SAT. A good bright student can teach themselves how to take the entrance exams but then why did they go to HS in the first place?
As far as I can tell with our recent programs initiated, this has only gotten worse since I graduated and students have gotten lazier. I remember a prof of mine explaining comprehensive exams at the undergrad level. Piece of paper, write down what you learned in this class. I didn't take any test like that but you see the point. We teach kids now how to cram and get good grades, we don't teach them to have a passion for the material and explore their world. Personally my kids will go to private school, of my choosing where I can look and see what teaching methods are used and the kind of student that makes it through the system. You should learn something, not just feel good about yourself, a good teacher can help both but unfortunately even the best teacher can be beat down by bureaucracy. Perhaps if enough of us support private schools the State will figure out what a sucessful program is and start enforcing educational standards than Kansas idiocracy.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Hey, science is easy. Dead easy. The problem is that science is taught as a religion. "Remember things" is all we've ever asked to do. In the eight years it took me to get out of Secondary School Hell, I've never been given the occasion to actually TEST by the Scientific Method any idea I've had. There were answers to all my questions already, but I just might have remembered SOMEthing if I'd discovered it myself!
But teaching Science in that way would make kids learn that there are effects and causes to everything, and maybe even that they can all be discovered and modelled. That is very near critical thinking, thus dangerous. Not going to happen at this point in this world. Maybe later, but I'm not counting on that...
The news is about "The UK is going to lower its requirements regarding what science facts kids have to know before they can get unemployed." Big deal.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
Guessing around isn't going to be very helpful when they suddenly find themselves in real world problems! hah!