Education media summary

A weekly round-up of all of the top education policy stories in the media, from www.reform.co.uk.

[The following is from a UCU email, which might of interest to all members of the LMS]

REF campaign update:

I wanted to write to you to update you with some good news, showing that our lobbying and the publicity we have generated over the ‘impact’ campaign is having an effect. Please see below:

[Article prepared for the LMS council retreat, originally published here: http://maxwelldemon.com/2010/01/03/lms-internet-communication-2/]



Currently the LMS has two main mean of communication. The first is the newsletter and the second the website. It has already been mentioned many times that the website is in need of a redesign. I will therefore concentrate on the options available for more general communication, in a way the modern version of the newsletter. Although one of the ideas here might inform decisions on the redesigned website.

What options are available?

The first option is a blog along with RSS/web feeds. Using these people can subscribe to the stories from the LMS and then let the system take over. The stories would then come in automatically mixed with their other news in the reader. If this is set up as a blog people will have the ability to comment back on stories and announcements. The futurelms blog has shown that their are people willing to engage in this manner, and have good comments to make.

The second option to consider is twitter. This is a new system and has been the subject of plenty of hype. The important thing to realise is that although much that travels over twitter is meaningless noise people can choose what they follow. It is reasonably easy to find the signal. Twitter has therefore attracted a large number of people who are worth following and talking to (whatever your definitions of those). I would single out in particular Lord Drayson (@lorddrayson) the Science minister who has used the system well, getting feedback and reacting to the concerns of scientists as well as simply broadcasting his messages. This engagement, as an example, generated a debate on science journalism between him and Ben Goldacre.

The final option are wikis. These obviously take their lead from the wikipedia. Essentially they provide a means for a community to jointly create web pages.

How can the LMS use these?

{Admin note: This might be of interest to readers here}

The challenges of the twenty-first century can only be met by a rigorous education that promotes personal discipline, intellectual curiosity and independence of thought. The global economy places a high premium on the skills – logical thinking, problem solving and cognitive ability – that in-depth subject teaching engenders. Economic success and social progress go hand in hand. A rigorous education, available to all, is the key solution to stagnant social mobility.

Britain has a proud heritage of thought, from Isaac Newton to Alan Turing to Frederick Sanger. Parts of its thriving university sector are competitive on the global stage. The academies programme and TeachFirst are raising standards in schools where it is needed most. There are also signs of a grassroots intellectual renaissance; the British Museum is now the top tourist attraction in Britain.

The proposed A Level “Uses of Mathematics” rings some alarm bells based on my experience in the USA twenty years ago.

A new Governor of Ohio was rightly shocked by the abysmal level of numeracy and literacy of schoolchildren. He instigated a fairly low level state-wide exam for 15 year olds that children could take several times but had to pass to get a certificate. To really ensure compliance, he stipulated that if a sufficient percentage of students from a school did not pass, that school’s funding from the state would be decreased accordingly. The initial academic response was “about time too”. But “the best laid plans of mice and men gae oft astray”. Apart from schools in affluent catchment areas, all of each school’s resources went on getting the necessary number of their pupils to pass the exam; they did little for the kids once they had passed (they had no incentive to do so and every incentive to do the opposite). Consequently, the mathematical ability of university entrants went down quite markedly.

Given the shortage of mathematics teachers in our own schools, schools will be hard pressed to cover both the proposed new course and the existing A Level in Matheamtics. What happens to students whose schools no longer offer A Level Maths but only Uses of Mathematics? Should they be penalised? Any Government will be politically obliged to take steps in that likely scenario to ensure that these students are considered for places in universities in the sciences. But UoM is not fit for purpose for university entry (or really anything else given its lack of content). The LMS and any other mathematical group will be ignored if we complain (as we already are when we complain that the current A Level in mathematics is too easy). Supporting something over which we have no control strikes me as very dangerous. I fully appreciate that we should do everything we can to get young people aware of mathematics, but Uses of Mathematics is not the answer, and until there is far more mathematical content in the proposed course, I think we might be wiser to postpone approving this proposed A Level.

(Admin note: this first appeared as a comment here).

The LMS annual elections are over, and you have been duly elected. Some of you have written about your views on this website, but some of you have kept quiet. In my previous contribution (17/10/09) I gave my own views from a long-term perspective, and I should now like to focus on the immediate problems.

1. Unification There seems to be a feeling in some quarters that the referendum of March 2009, in which 56% of 1168 members were in favour of unification, was irrelevant. On the other hand, the vote of May 2009, in which 56% of 1049 members were against, is regarded as conclusive. This view is accompanied by suggestions that the Council and the membership had been steamrollered by a few ‘dangerous radicals’ into supporting an ill-considered policy. In fact, until recently the Council had proceeded very cautiously, and there were numerous opportunities for dissenting views to be heard. While the dissenters were in a minority, the Council quite rightly pursued the policy approved by the majority. QUESTION: How do you propose to proceed regarding the ‘route to unification’, agreed by Council in 2006?

2. Voice There have been calls for the LMS to ‘speak with its own voice’. Over the past ten years, much time and energy has been invested in establishing a mechanism that can express a clear and coherent view on behalf of the mathematical community. Initially there were some problems but, in my experience, the LMS and the IMA were rarely at cross-purposes. Indeed, the problems that have arisen recently are not the result of disagreement between the two bodies; instead they are the result of disagreement between members of the LMS. QUESTION : Do you propose to establish a unique ‘voice’ for the LMS, independent of the CMS, IMA, and other organisations; and if so, how?

3. Organisation My support for unification was based upon a desire to see the ethos of the LMS (but not necessarily all its policies) extended to a wider range of mathematicians. Consequently I have been confused by the fact that calls for the LMS to increase its membership have come from those who oppose unification. Even with the current size, it is clearly not possible to run the Society without the use of employees, working alongside the elected officers. Traditionally, the LMS had little experience or expertise as an employer, and staffing matters took up a great deal of time in the early 2000s. As a temporary measure, a set of ‘Five Principles’ was agreed, but they were not intended to be a blueprint for day-to-day operations. Such a blueprint is now clearly needed. QUESTION : How do you propose to clarify the respective roles of the Society’s members, its Council, its elected officers, and its professional employees?

4. Communication It is clear that the LMS needs to communicate more effectively in (at least) two areas: (1) the promotion of mathematics in all its forms, and (2) informing and consulting with its members. The efforts of the staff at De Morgan House have resulted in some improvements, but progress has been slow, and much remains to be done. QUESTION: How do you propose to improve the Society’s lines of communication, and how do you propose to find the resources (human and financial) for this work?

The recent government idea of estimating the value of research partly on the basis of its social and economic impact is folly, but unsurprising  since the present government seems eager to exercise control in inappropriate ways. In this case it treats creative people as apparatchiks and apparatchiks as creative people — see my essay on in the December issue of /Standpoint/ Magazine, which you can access on the web at:
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/unsound-science-counterpoints-december-09-mark-ronan-research

I just read the recent ACME consultation paper on the question of the Use of Maths A-Level and think that a 2-pathway approach would be appropriate, which ensures that  Maths – like English – continue to be compulsory at least at “(school) foundation level”, with 2 hours per week over two years.   The time of 2 years is far too short and precious, in my view, to play with any further refinement of pathways for those who may need mathematics in their future professions. Having to make a choice between such pathways would be premature for most students at age 16 anyway.

By the way, a two-tier system with a basic and an advanced maths course for the two or three years before Abitur has worked well in Germany’s high schools for many years.

My personal criticism of the ways in which school mathematics is treated goes deeper: Rather than being concerned with introducing more refined provision, one should give up the fixation on league tables and the life lie that wants to make us believe in the ever-increasing quality of A-level performance (and the ever-increasing intelligence levels of the population that one might need to assume to explain this phenomenon). League table pressures have led to a situation where many schools drill their students to pass exams (“jump hoops”) rather than help them understand mathematics. One should instead focus on ways to convey to students the experience that maths is something that one CAN in fact understand.

For many years (in my case 14 since I started working at a UK university) we have seen increasing numbers of first-years who have only learned to mechanically perform pre-formatted and long-rehearsed tasks without really knowing the what and why. Very often student feedback reflects the expectation that we should continue to treat them that way.  As a colleague’s anecdote has it: challenged by students, he told them that he had to set them some unseen exam questions to test whether they were able to apply what they had learned and think for themselves to solve a problem; the students replied: if you had taught us properly in the first place, we would not need to think.

It seems to me that often it takes the students and us almost into their 3rd year of study before that mind-set has been broken and they do actually start to think on their feet. I would like to dream that one day a school system has been put in place with teachers able and allowed to induce the students to enjoy doing and understanding maths. When my youngest daughter started her final two years of high school in Canada after her GCSE in the UK, she came home one day saying excitedly how thrilled she was that one could actually understand subjects like maths and physics!

That the opposite seems to happen more is evident from anecdotes such as the above or this one: having learned that besides sin(x) and sinh(x) there are also functions cos(x) and cosh(x), some students have in fact concluded that besides sign(x) there also has to be a function called cogs(x).  This is not a joke, nor an isolated instance. It shows what kind of thinking may develop in schools and is brought into universities, on the strength of good enough grades in A-level maths. When my daughter was exposed to trig functions in year 9 the first time, she was just instructed to perform calculations on her calculator. When she asked her teacher what this “sin(x)” meant, the teacher said it would take too long to explain, this would come in a later year.

So, I’d rather wish to see the real issues being addressed instead of being contented with the chimera of ever improving A-level statistics. Introducing a “vocational” maths pathway is not the answer; managing three different maths streams is bound to cause excessive administrative burdens on teachers and schools and takes away even more the ability of teachers to focus on their job.

Results of elections to contested posts in the LMSCouncil as announced at today’s AGM:

General Secretary: Hyland

Education Secretary: Budd

Members-at-Large:

Barrow-Green

Donaldson

Laptev

Segal

Totaro

Wilson

Chandler-Wilde

Nominating Committee:

Etheridge

Liebeck

With all the business concerning the proposed merger and the events that  followed its rejection by the Society members, I was amazed by the lack of information provided to the members through the Society official channels, the LMS website and the Newsletter. There was a clear impression of an internal censorship. Information have been appearing in homoeopathic doses;  till now, all the “official” announcements on the website have been cryptic and often had an obvious bias. (For example, what have appeared about the Council meeting in August where the nomination of the President-Designate was confirmed — and some officers resigned “as a consequence of this”.) I had lived a substantial part of my life under the Soviet communist regime. At those days, I, as well as many my compatriots, had learned how to read the official reports about the Politburo meetings published by Pravda and then republished word by word by all other newspapers, and similar party texts. It was a certain art to look through those lines composed by an anonymous trusted high-ranking party journalist (and thoroughly checked by several people before it could appear in press) and to figure out what was happening in reality. Everything mattered: the order of words, the very vocabulary used (sometimes the appearance of a new word might be a sign of a new campaign), how precisely the names of party bosses were quoted there, and so on.  Unfortunately, I had to apply that art again for reading the recent LMS announcements. I do not think it is healthy. The new LMS Council should change the situation completely. It is a learned society, not a business corporation. Openness is essential. To avoid turning the London Mathematical Society into something totally alien to its goals and dominated by the managerial (or “inner party”) spirit, was, I think, the main motivation for many who voted against the merger. The merger is dead; but we have to think about the future. The elections on the 20th November may be crucial from this viewpoint. After the elections, with the new Council, we want back the spirit of the society of mathematicians. Small grants, good publications, work mainly done by officers on a volunteer basis, openness, discussions, — yes; “lobbying”, spending money on bureaucracy, handling matters in secrecy, promoting the “party line”, and similar things, — thank you very much, no.

Ted Voronov

P.S. On a slightly different but related topic. There has been an apparent fall in standards in the recent time. I did not receive the October issue of the Newsletter with the voting papers. Initially I thought I have lost it myself, mysteriously, so it was my own fault; but then I have learned that one or possibly two of my colleagus did not receive that issue with the electoral papers either. Eventually I have obtained the ballot papers after I requested them from the secretary. Now, differently from the past, there is just a single small envelope for putting the ballot paper, on which we are supposed to write the name “in block capitals” and sign it. Before, there was a large second external envelope. It is just a detail, but it has probably played a role. Actually, it would be a good idea for the future to ask the Electoral Reform Services to help us to establish a secure and simple electronic voting system to avoid all this hassle with the paper ballots.