Today I visited my old high school. Before this, I visited a few times during first and second year Biomedicine. I don't think I've been there since then, and I don't know many students there anymore.
There were some teachers which have left since they taught me, but some were still there, and I talked to them today. Some of them had quite a few things to say, especially since our school merged with two other schools, and there was a lot of change happening after I left.
Most of the teachers I talked to asked what I was doing now. I'm not someone who hides that I'm doing medicine, and I told them that I finished Biomedicine last year and I'm doing Medicine now. I met some of my past science, math teachers and coordinators, including the physics teachers who helped teach me some of the physics I would later need for the GAMSAT.
A few teachers commented that they still talked about me, even though I haven't been studying at the school for almost four years now. It's somewhat nice to be recognized in some sense, but on the other hand, it is somewhat sad that for some subjects I did, there haven't been students getting 40+ study scores (out of 50; 40 is top 9%) for some of the past years, which caused me to stand out further in the minds of some teachers.
That contrasts with some other schools which have been able to almost consistently get quite a few almost each year. However, my high school was one with students from a lower SES on average, so it wouldn't be expected to do that well. That said, this is a problem with the education system in Australia. In some other countries, the achievement gap isn't as great between low and high socioeconomic status students. The government seems to be doing something about it though, and I can only hope that what they're doing works properly.
One of the teachers also mentioned that more people were leaving the school to go to selective schools. This isn't really a surprise, given that new selective schools have gone up in our side of Melbourne (Sir John Monash Science School and Nossal). However, I can't help to think that some of the reason that people leave is because the Accelerated Program people do not get to finish a year early anymore like I did, which I've discussed earlier this year in this blog.
I certainly would have considered leaving the school for a selective school more seriously given the current situation if I was in the accelerated program now, being unable to finish a year early. Talking to teachers, there also doesn't appear to be any indication of those accelerated people staying another year translating into much better students at Year 12 level, so I still don't agree with what they've done to the program there. Even if those accelerated students were measurably better (which doesn't seem to be the case), it doesn't seem right to me to keep them back another year if they could enter university anyway without staying another year in high school.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Selective Entry Accelerated Learning Programs
When I was in grade six, along with about 100 people, I sat a test to get into the accelerated learning program at a high school. I got in, and a quarter of the test takers would later form an accelerated class at our school.
At my high school, the structure was such that we did year 8 maths (and some covered year 7 and a bit of year 8 of other core subjects like English and science) in year 7, year 9 maths in year 8 (covering the rest of year 8 science and year 9 science, and up to year 9 English), skipping year 9 and doing almost the same things as all the other year 10 classes in year 10 if we decided to stay on at the school and not go to Melbourne High School (MHS) or Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (MacRob) for example.
From then, we had the opportunity to do "two year VCE" if we wanted to, to finish high school a year earlier, or "three year VCE" if we wanted to use up a year "saved" to try to get a better mark in VCE. I took up the "two year VCE" option, like a lot of my peers, and subsequently successfully completed VCE, completed Biomedicine in the usual time, and I'm now in medicine.
However, after my year level went straight to year 10 and skipped year 9, the school decided to change the arrangements of the accelerated program for future year levels. Instead of skipping year 9, you did mainly year 10 core subjects in year 9. In "year 10", students were required to take up year 11 English, History and Mathematical Methods (mid-level VCE maths). Due to the inflexibility of the subjects possible for electives, it effectively forced people to undergo "three year VCE", with the first year being year 10.
To be honest, I was quite baffled with their change in policy at the school. I personally did not feel that there was much wrong with the old "two year VCE" after acceleration system. What was so wrong about people leaving school one year early, when they were entirely capable of doing so and able to study at university? Surely going to university would be more effective use of their time than staying back at school for another year.
The stated reason from the school seemed to be due to concerns about the maturity about the students leaving. There was concern that the people undergoing two year VCE after being in the accelerated learning program would not be mature enough to go to university because they were one year younger. While this is a point which may be true for some people, I don't think it is a good reason to keep everyone back. Myself and many others who have done "two year VCE" after being part of the accelerated program have managed to successfully complete a bachelor degree within the normal time frame. (In hindsight, maybe I could have skipped two years too, seeing that my GAMSAT score in 2010 was still clearly enough for UQ medicine for a CSP place for 2011 entry, or 2012 entry for that matter, without an interview.) Furthermore, for those who may not be ready for university that early, they still did have the option of "three year VCE" to use up their "saved" year.
Furthermore, being unable to skip a year anymore at my high school (which has a lower SES on average) removes one of the advantages of staying on at the school. Before, the advantage of staying on meant that you got to skip straight from "year 8" to year 10 and finish a year earlier, which you couldn't do if you went to MHS or MacRob for example. Now though, that option does not exist, so there is less of a reason to stay on at the school and not move to MHS or MacRob.
Sometimes I wonder if the school had another motive for changing the system. Was it to try to lift up the proportion of 40+ (top 9%) study scores in their statistics? I'm not sure if it was a reason, but if it was, then it was not really to the benefit of the students who could have started their bachelor degree a year earlier.
At my high school, the structure was such that we did year 8 maths (and some covered year 7 and a bit of year 8 of other core subjects like English and science) in year 7, year 9 maths in year 8 (covering the rest of year 8 science and year 9 science, and up to year 9 English), skipping year 9 and doing almost the same things as all the other year 10 classes in year 10 if we decided to stay on at the school and not go to Melbourne High School (MHS) or Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (MacRob) for example.
From then, we had the opportunity to do "two year VCE" if we wanted to, to finish high school a year earlier, or "three year VCE" if we wanted to use up a year "saved" to try to get a better mark in VCE. I took up the "two year VCE" option, like a lot of my peers, and subsequently successfully completed VCE, completed Biomedicine in the usual time, and I'm now in medicine.
However, after my year level went straight to year 10 and skipped year 9, the school decided to change the arrangements of the accelerated program for future year levels. Instead of skipping year 9, you did mainly year 10 core subjects in year 9. In "year 10", students were required to take up year 11 English, History and Mathematical Methods (mid-level VCE maths). Due to the inflexibility of the subjects possible for electives, it effectively forced people to undergo "three year VCE", with the first year being year 10.
To be honest, I was quite baffled with their change in policy at the school. I personally did not feel that there was much wrong with the old "two year VCE" after acceleration system. What was so wrong about people leaving school one year early, when they were entirely capable of doing so and able to study at university? Surely going to university would be more effective use of their time than staying back at school for another year.
The stated reason from the school seemed to be due to concerns about the maturity about the students leaving. There was concern that the people undergoing two year VCE after being in the accelerated learning program would not be mature enough to go to university because they were one year younger. While this is a point which may be true for some people, I don't think it is a good reason to keep everyone back. Myself and many others who have done "two year VCE" after being part of the accelerated program have managed to successfully complete a bachelor degree within the normal time frame. (In hindsight, maybe I could have skipped two years too, seeing that my GAMSAT score in 2010 was still clearly enough for UQ medicine for a CSP place for 2011 entry, or 2012 entry for that matter, without an interview.) Furthermore, for those who may not be ready for university that early, they still did have the option of "three year VCE" to use up their "saved" year.
Furthermore, being unable to skip a year anymore at my high school (which has a lower SES on average) removes one of the advantages of staying on at the school. Before, the advantage of staying on meant that you got to skip straight from "year 8" to year 10 and finish a year earlier, which you couldn't do if you went to MHS or MacRob for example. Now though, that option does not exist, so there is less of a reason to stay on at the school and not move to MHS or MacRob.
Sometimes I wonder if the school had another motive for changing the system. Was it to try to lift up the proportion of 40+ (top 9%) study scores in their statistics? I'm not sure if it was a reason, but if it was, then it was not really to the benefit of the students who could have started their bachelor degree a year earlier.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Standardized testing results in education: good or overemphasized?
I recently saw an article in The Age which has criticized the alleged overemphasis of the NAPLAN, the national standardized test for math and English over Australia for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 [Official quits at school's test results spike]. This prompted me to write this essay.
There is no doubt that Australia could do with an increase in literacy and numeracy standards of school pupils. One only has to look at the results of TIMSS to find that Australians do not perform close to the top nations in these areas. Standardized tests are used widely around the world to measure performance in areas. They are a benchmark, with results of people able to be easily compared with one another. As such, they can provide meaningful comparisons between different people who do the same test.
Since standardized tests enable meaningful comparisons, they should be used in education. In the case of Dallas Primary School, they saw an increase in scores for the NAPLAN. The most obvious conclusion, therefore, is that the quality of the students' math and literacy skills has increased. The use of the standardized test has given us a relatively objective measure of this.
However, detractors may argue that the test has been overemphasized. Particularly, that students are trained "just to do well in the test". But this should not be an issue, if the test is written well. If the test covers good math and literacy skills in great detail and depth, then an increase in scores indicates an increase in student ability. Therefore, virtually all the training for students "just to do well in the test" would have the effect of increasing math and literacy skills; the wanted outcome, with the remaining small amount devoted to exam strategy which will become important later on as students move into higher education.
How would you explain a spike in data though? Well, to me, there is no good reason why a real increase in math and literacy skills of the students isn't a good explanation. Two years is a long time, and the students can learn a lot in this time. Especially considering how low Australian math standards are, there is no good reason why students cannot catch up in two years. Of course, there could be other effects too though; more than 30% of people did not sit the test and they could have been low performers. However, a lot of these were excluded due to arriving in Australia for only a short time, and the departmental investigation found no artificial inflation from exclusion from the school. Then again, it's also possible that this is a freak result. We'll find out after the results come out this year. But that doesn't invalidate the test.
As for the "world's best practice" alluded to in the article? Well, just look at the TIMSS results. It seems like the "world's best practice" of numeracy and literacy standards is found in East Asian nations and countries like Singapore. And our Australian performance is not even close! It's not rocket science here, it's not as if we're at the top of the game. If you want "world's best practice", then learn from them. That's what we should be doing.
Standardized testing and aiming to improve upon benchmarks is a great way to increase our literacy and math standards. It is perhaps the only objective way to note improvement. If the test is written well, then most increases in scores would mean increases in real math and literacy skills. However, if the test is not sound, then it should be improved. But they should not be dispensed with completely.
There is no doubt that Australia could do with an increase in literacy and numeracy standards of school pupils. One only has to look at the results of TIMSS to find that Australians do not perform close to the top nations in these areas. Standardized tests are used widely around the world to measure performance in areas. They are a benchmark, with results of people able to be easily compared with one another. As such, they can provide meaningful comparisons between different people who do the same test.
Since standardized tests enable meaningful comparisons, they should be used in education. In the case of Dallas Primary School, they saw an increase in scores for the NAPLAN. The most obvious conclusion, therefore, is that the quality of the students' math and literacy skills has increased. The use of the standardized test has given us a relatively objective measure of this.
However, detractors may argue that the test has been overemphasized. Particularly, that students are trained "just to do well in the test". But this should not be an issue, if the test is written well. If the test covers good math and literacy skills in great detail and depth, then an increase in scores indicates an increase in student ability. Therefore, virtually all the training for students "just to do well in the test" would have the effect of increasing math and literacy skills; the wanted outcome, with the remaining small amount devoted to exam strategy which will become important later on as students move into higher education.
How would you explain a spike in data though? Well, to me, there is no good reason why a real increase in math and literacy skills of the students isn't a good explanation. Two years is a long time, and the students can learn a lot in this time. Especially considering how low Australian math standards are, there is no good reason why students cannot catch up in two years. Of course, there could be other effects too though; more than 30% of people did not sit the test and they could have been low performers. However, a lot of these were excluded due to arriving in Australia for only a short time, and the departmental investigation found no artificial inflation from exclusion from the school. Then again, it's also possible that this is a freak result. We'll find out after the results come out this year. But that doesn't invalidate the test.
As for the "world's best practice" alluded to in the article? Well, just look at the TIMSS results. It seems like the "world's best practice" of numeracy and literacy standards is found in East Asian nations and countries like Singapore. And our Australian performance is not even close! It's not rocket science here, it's not as if we're at the top of the game. If you want "world's best practice", then learn from them. That's what we should be doing.
Standardized testing and aiming to improve upon benchmarks is a great way to increase our literacy and math standards. It is perhaps the only objective way to note improvement. If the test is written well, then most increases in scores would mean increases in real math and literacy skills. However, if the test is not sound, then it should be improved. But they should not be dispensed with completely.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Australia needs to improve its pre-university math and science education
The current state of primary and secondary math and science education is far from ideal. Learning mathematics and science is very slow until the last two years of high school, then the pace picks up enormously in the important last two years before university, and then again in university. As such, the extremely slow pace before year 11 hardly prepares aspiring science university students well for the next 5 or more years of their study.
This can be shown in international benchmark tests such as TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). According to the TIMSS 2007 Math Report (page 35, 38; 47, 50th in pdf), at year 8 level, Australians perform statistically significantly worse than Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary, England, Russia, the US and Lithuania. Also, a 95th percentile Australian would not even reach the 75th percentile mark in Singapore, Korea or Taiwan; while an average Australian would fall within the bottom quartile in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. In other words, our supposedly gifted students, those within the top 5%, can not even compare with the top quarter of the top math nations. This is a definite cause for concern.
It is also concerning that Australia is below the United States, despite some of their states having a very poor "fuzzy math" curriculum. Such curriculum had very little emphasis on simple basic techniques such as manipulating fractions or even multiplication or division without a calculator. Such reforms had come because the old regime was not perfect. However, this demonstrates what can happen when reforms go wrong.
It could be said that these East Asian nations have more emphasis on the students doing well in math by parents, as a matter of culture. However, even without this emphasis for some students, the top Australian students, especially those who find the current curriculum up to year 10 unchallenging, could do very well simply with a much stronger curriculum than currently.
Australia is currently in a process of implementing a national curriculum. While a reform of math standards is definitely needed, I find it doubtful that standards will reach those seen in Taiwan, Korea or Singapore. But I do hope so, it is definitely needed here.
This can be shown in international benchmark tests such as TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). According to the TIMSS 2007 Math Report (page 35, 38; 47, 50th in pdf), at year 8 level, Australians perform statistically significantly worse than Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary, England, Russia, the US and Lithuania. Also, a 95th percentile Australian would not even reach the 75th percentile mark in Singapore, Korea or Taiwan; while an average Australian would fall within the bottom quartile in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. In other words, our supposedly gifted students, those within the top 5%, can not even compare with the top quarter of the top math nations. This is a definite cause for concern.
It is also concerning that Australia is below the United States, despite some of their states having a very poor "fuzzy math" curriculum. Such curriculum had very little emphasis on simple basic techniques such as manipulating fractions or even multiplication or division without a calculator. Such reforms had come because the old regime was not perfect. However, this demonstrates what can happen when reforms go wrong.
It could be said that these East Asian nations have more emphasis on the students doing well in math by parents, as a matter of culture. However, even without this emphasis for some students, the top Australian students, especially those who find the current curriculum up to year 10 unchallenging, could do very well simply with a much stronger curriculum than currently.
Australia is currently in a process of implementing a national curriculum. While a reform of math standards is definitely needed, I find it doubtful that standards will reach those seen in Taiwan, Korea or Singapore. But I do hope so, it is definitely needed here.
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