“What the research is suggesting is that a sense of achievement leads to motivation. If you start to achieve something,you seek out the opportunities to do more maths.”
He warned such motivation was often stymied by fashionable teaching trends such as inquiry-based learning and “productive struggle”,where students persevere trying to solve a task on their own,as opposed to explicit instruction,where a teacher clearly explains every step to solve a problem.
“Struggling is going to demotivate them if you’re intentionally causing kids to struggle at maths,” Ashman said.
The former head of the NSW Department of Education and current Sydney University vice chancellor Mark Scott last year observed howprimary school teachers may be “maths avoiders”,and divert classroom activities away from numeracy because they were either suffered from maths anxiety or struggled themselves with maths. Another Sydney principal decried that primary school students were entering high school without theability to add up,subtract,multiply or divide.
New curriculums developed by the NSW Education Standards Authority have been rolled out in primary and secondary schools this year in a bid to make mathematics content clearer and more sequenced for teachers.
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Carmen Cheung,relieving head of mathematics at Glenwood High School,said year 7 students entered their secondary education with varying skills depending on their background and primary school,with teachers focusing on getting everyone on a level playing field.
“We do offer additional numeracy support,for example our maths teachers volunteer their time twice a week for a program called maths help,” she said.
“We also have numeracy tutors,just in the classroom helping out. They might take some students to catch up on[primary school] skills.”
Director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute Tim Marchant criticised the government for scrapping the compulsory maths plan,saying it would have helped students with the basic life skills to make decisions about mortgages,health outcomes and gambling. Roughly a third of year 9 students in NSW failed to meet the proficiency standard in numeracy NAPLAN tests last year.
“English is compulsory,and that’s seen as important because it provides fundamental skills,” he said.
“I am not suggesting they have to do advanced maths. I think it is valuable for all of those kids who have struggled in mathematics in the junior and middle years to keep going to build up those basic skills.”