New UK Initiative - Make Science Easier 423
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."
Everest or a word-search, take your pick! (Score:5, Interesting)
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
There's no such thing as a "UK" exam. (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
i was hoping (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an 11 year old sister who recently shocked me by being unable to divide by 12 (to convert inches to feet). She could perform the math operation trivially when she was 8 or 9. If anything, she's backsliding in regular school. With exams like this, I fear for her performance. Earlier today my mom and I had a bitter fight over whether we should just homeschool her until the XIth grade when hopefully she can take the IB.
Any thoughts? Feedback? Resources?
food for thought. (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
No calculus? (Score:3, Interesting)
Testing reasoning (not memory) w/ multiple choice (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
It's the right way. (Score:1, Interesting)
behold: "The Campaign for Real Education" (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of concerned parents and education professionals. Their website is a mine of information and comparisons on this subject.
All the information you could want and only a click away.
Make it *harder*, to make it more popular (Score:3, Interesting)
1)In order to make science "more interesting", we should make it more rigorous, and more challenging. At the moment, it's just dull (unless the teachers can ignore the syllabus and not focus on the exams). Health and safety mania doesn't help. [I was lucky: my teachers had a healthy contempt for the more idiotic rules - we were always sensible, but didn't treat 0.1 molar acids as being more dangerous in the lab than in the kitchen]
2)We shouldn't worry so much about less able students being put off science; we should care about the bright ones being put off.
3)A C is not a decent pass grade - it's the lowest grade that isn't a "fail". D,E,F grades are worthless. Likewise, it's simply absurd to consider doing A-level physics without also doing maths.
4)You can't run before you can walk. The current approach is to supplant the "dry" things like mechanics by "sexy" things such as Fusion,Quantum,etc. But the "hot topics" are too hard, so they get covered at a very simplistic level. That just isn't satisfying - there's none of the excitement that comes from suddenly *understanding* how (part of) the real world works.
Currently, in a vain attempt to make everyone aware of the basics of science, we're denying our brightest pupils the ability to actually *do* real science. And by dumbing it down (either by making it very easy, or only covering the "sexy" stuff), there's no thrill of actual discovery left.
Re:No calculus? (Score:3, Interesting)
While doing simple calculus is pretty easy, if it was taught at GCSE it would have to be taught as formulae (eg. d/dx(ax^n)=anx^(n-1)) which you learn by rote with little to no understanding of where it comes from (while the teachers might go through a basic derivation, it would only be for the sake of the top pupils, no-one else would understand it). I really don't see the point of learning it like that.
Re:A simple rant. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They've been dumbing down exams in England for (Score:2, Interesting)
Thank God I emigrated too!