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Category Archives: Random thoughts
Aside
I want to talk about normalized percentages. “What makes these irrational?”, I hear you say. Their application to examinations and assessments is what.
The big change for students completing A-levels this year was the introduction of the A* – an attempt to increase the value of the ‘gold standard’, as I see it. Unless of course you are taking Maths, Further Maths, Further Maths (Additional), Statistics, and Use of Maths AS. No AS will have the A* grade available.
“We can’t rely on A-levels any more.” [Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial College quoted in The Sunday Times].
Lower tier students (oops, I mean foundation…) are expected to work proportionately harder to achieve the higher grades than those doing the higher tier.
Does a C at GCSE mean they did enough to get 60% of each question correct but not reach the final answer of any of the problems? Or am I just being silly?
I have one word which I feel would address most, if not all, of these issues: portfolios.
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Having never had to run a department, let alone a school, I wonder how apprehensive the management teams are about sudden changes. I also wonder how those of us who are not in management positions can best support our colleagues.
Whilst many situations may be new to the management of schools, people have been managing businesses for years: running meetings, controlling budgets, hiring and firing people, etc. Perhaps the time is ripe for schools to get some wisdom from local businesses, since some of their students may be future employees or business owners. The way things appear to be headed in the UK, to me as a recent returnee, seems to be that school = small business!
Try to empathize with the people around you, whatever their position or status, if you can start to see the world through their eyes, then times will certainly become more interesting and less worrying.
Aristotle summed it up in one word: φρόνησις Continue reading
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Anyone who’s moved house once or twice will know that you go through a stage of unpacking the important boxes, and leaving a few boxes lying around until you get the rooms sorted out the way you want! My blog … Continue reading
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It seems a natural thing for educators who are like me to spend time reflecting on themselves and their work, and then for them to take action on their reflections. In my own case, the reflective process is also combined … Continue reading
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No, you didn’t mis-read, I do think that mathematics is a language, with its own culture and literature, but seemingly inaccessible to the non-speakers.
Those of you, like me, who ‘get it’ and, more to the point, understand and enjoy teaching mathematics probably feel the same frustration as a tourist in the Brazilian rainforest trying to describe a 4G phone to an Amazonian who knows what telephones are, but doesn’t really see how they can be useful in hunting tapir… At least, if you’re anything like me you will! Continue reading
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This was the guest post I was asked to contribute following #edchat on 13th July 2010 (17:00 – 18:00 my time!). It will be interesting to see what kind of response, if any, it provokes. I must admit it is … Continue reading
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Continuing the theme started by the list of books that I feel sum me up, I am now moving on to events from history which share my birthday, and which sum me up, of course! As before, I leave it to … Continue reading
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Number 2 in my longitudinal survey of myself using pictures. Charts courtesy of http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html
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Continuing the theme started by the list of books that I feel sum me up, I am now moving on to films (or movies for my American readers!). As before, I leave it to others to guess why I chose … Continue reading
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I’ve decided to carry out a longitudinal survey of myself using pictures. Charts courtesy of http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html
Sine of the Times: Dividing the Universe by Zero 