Overseas students have delivered a cash bonanza to universities, but at what cost?

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 2:30 PM
Overseas students have delivered a cash bonanza to universities, but at what cost?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/overseas-students-have-delivered-a-cash-bonanza-to-universities-but-at-what-cost-20190822-p52jvk.html

After many years teaching International students in TAFEs, private colleges and university, I am appalled that the education system is really up the creek.

My teaching life in university was short, so I can't comment much, but my experience at TAFEs and private colleges teaching the Chinese and other nationals is far from satisfactory.

Plagiarism was rampant, and the finish product of the plagiarised work by some students was utter nonsense.

Some examination papers, including mathematics, was full of Chinese translation. Most electronic or cyber translators were not good in translating complex sentences, especially specialised subjects including maths, resulted in nonsensical context. Sentences formed by simple transliteration of individual words don't normally make sense.

Many students were not just lazy, but extremely lazy. Assignments were submitted at the very last minute, or poor excuses were given to expect me to give them an extension.

One day, I armed with the student's handbook and asked the Director of the school whether what was written about failing students for plagiarism was for real or just to scare the students. The Director was bewildered, and looked at me rather stunned. He replied, "of course it is for real!"

I was not trying to be funny or being cheeky. I thanked for for his words of assurance. I went into my Excel class and failed all the students.

Thank you for reading.

Overseas students have delivered a cash bonanza to universities, but at what cost?

My Story - A day with the Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 students

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 2:31 AM
My Story - A day with the Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 students

Never I felt so good before. The teachers were so pleased to see me back to help in their classes.

The Prep students learnt Skip Counting using a calculator. They also learnt grouping.

For the second exercise, a small group of students exhibited much stronger cognitive ability by grouping objects by shapes, sizes, thickness, etc instead of colours. Grouping by colours is the simplest and most obvious method used by the rest of the students.

In Year 5, the students learnt function rule, and algebra. In Year 4, the students learnt multiplication of three digits by two digits, with some exercises involved decimals.

I can see a better way to teach the students more efficiently and effectively, but my hands are tied. I am not a teacher, but just to help out.

Many people, including the students, are not good at identifying their shortcomings, and therefore they have problems identifying problems. Without knowing what the problem is, there is no way to remove the hurdle to have a smooth run in the future.

Thank you for reading.

Would a website by any other name smell as sweet? It cost $48,000 to find out

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 12:55 AM
Posted to The Age (28/10/2019) on 29/10/2019 (not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "Would a website by any other name smell as sweet? It cost $48,000 to find out"
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/would-a-website-by-any-other-name-smell-as-sweet-it-cost-48-000-to-find-out-20191025-p5344c.html

I was wondering this Course Seeker website is for the golfing enthusiast or some punters who can’t be sure Melbourne Cup will be run next year.

Course Seeker? Of course, it takes many idle brains to come out with such unimaginative website name. Such a name is uncool, and untrendy.

No one ever imagined Google could become what it is today. Then there are names like Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. which are quite meaningless, but they stick in the mind of millions.

Thank you for reading.

Would a website by any other name smell as sweet? It cost $48,000 to find out

I wouldn't want my child anywhere near the new 'excellence' program

Posted to Facebook 28/10/2019 at 5:25 PM
Posted to The Age (28/10/2019) on 28/10/2019 (not published by newspaper)
Commenting on “I wouldn't want my child anywhere near the new 'excellence' program”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/i-wouldn-t-want-my-child-anywhere-near-the-new-excellence-program-20191024-p533yy.html

I have been waiting for such a program to surface to help the excellent students who are generally the smart students who have been discriminated and dragged down by the not so smart ones in a class, since streaming of students is no longer existed.

Those object such a program or can’t see value in it are just sour grapes, who just want to chop down the tall poppies. We want this to be a smart country, I believe many Australians do, but we are not fair dinkum in helping those who can excel and take the lead to show that Australia can be even better than the Scandinavian countries in education.

Excellent students are normally not just smart in one subject or discipline. They can interconnect numerous concepts, visualise things in virtual dimension.

In fact, some students who have been diagnosed as autistic or suffered from Asperger’s syndrome could have been helped by such a program. These sfferers are suffering in silence.

What most people, that include students of any age, are been suppressed to developed to full potential because they are labelled by cruel and not-good-enough people time and time as book worm, smart Alec, nerd, and show off. In fact, this is truly unfair and can damage the mental well-beig of these people.

Smart students should not be just referred to those academically smart, but also those who are street smart. In addition, there are those who are different from the norm, ask challenging questions that beyond the textbook material and the repository of Google database.

By the way, Einstein learnt calculus by himself at the age of 12.

Thank you for reading.

I wouldn't want my child anywhere near the new 'excellence' program

Are high achievers the answer to teaching's poor reputation?

Posted to Facebook 21/10/2019 at 12:41 PM
Posted to The Age (21/19/2019 on 21/10/2019 (not published by he newspaper) Commenting on “Are high achievers the answer to teaching's poor reputation?”
https://www.theage.com.au/education/are-high-achievers-the-answer-to-teaching-s-poor-reputation-20190917-p52s4e.html

I walked to the reception of a primary school and asked to see someone who could take me on as a volunteer. I am one now and that story about how I finally get there is history.

It is true that not all teachers are qualified to teach in all subjects, but unfortunately there are too many subjects and there are not enough students of the same competency level in a class to justify employing more teachers. Removing streaming of students is a big problem and a half.

To qualify that, the students’ competency gap is too big within each class, but the teachers are expected to handle them as a counsellor, and child minding carer, besides being a “coach” and ‘trainer”.

I only volunteer a day each week in maths, not of my own choice, but I still enjoy it. During that day, I volunteer in three “grades” or “years”. I have no idea how some students in Year 5 having very much lower competency can be promoted to the grade.

Have you ever tried handling or keeping 20 young people quiet by not raising your voice? If a teacher raises his/her voice, or saying something perceived to damage the children’s psychology, the teacher is likely to get reprimanded or a marching order, because the children’s parents will come down like a ton of bricks. Well, the laws are very skewed.

The teachers allocate me to “teach” or help different groups of students with different problems. So far, the teachers have been very kind to me, probably the students like the way I assist them.

Many students are very eager to be “selected” to join my group. In fact, a teacher commented that the way the students “welcomed” me, I was like a rock star. I am not a high achiever, and definitely do not “teach” the students for the money. My success is attributed to my patience and lots of life experience gained from different discipline. Most importantly, I speak the students’ language; using action heroes, cartoon characters, famous people etc, to illustrate how problems can be solved, and reward them with a Hi 5 for correct answers.

Many people make too much assumption that their audience understand the underlying reasons or theories of a problem. Is it enough to have a right answer if a student cannot explain how it is derived? A student may have solved or seen a similar question or problem before so that they can quote the answers correctly.

Younger students want to know why and then how. Not everyone understands reasoning the same way, because some have better developed logic part of the brain, while others the cognitive part of the brain.

In general, If a picture speaks a thousand words, I shall throw in a line to say that an examples speaks a thousand times more. The best example is one that they can relate too.

Fun grabs students attention, makes them laugh and remember.

That’s my contribution to education, and to the younger generations.

Thank you for reading.

Are high achievers the answer to teaching's poor reputation?

Is it time to ditch the ATAR and even NAPLAN?

Posted to Facebook on 12/10/2019 at 7:36 PM
Is it time to ditch the ATAR and even NAPLAN?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-atar-and-even-naplan-20191004-p52xs8.html

I believe ATAR and NPLAN are good assessment tools, and should be retained to gauge the students‘ academic performance so that the education system can be fine tuned.

For quite awhile I hold firm belief that our system is plagued by political correctness policies, under the influence of social reformists and psychologists.

Teachers can no longer be honest and direct to report the actual students‘ performance and behaviour, in fear of breaching the code of conduct or sued by parents for damaging their children’s psychology.

For the perceived benefit of social interaction, students struggling in understanding lessons are mixed with “smart” students who can become very disinterested in the class, be disruptive and feel cheated for being dragged down.

Thank you for reading.

Is it time to ditch the ATAR and even NAPLAN?

Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths

Posted to Facebook on 11/10/2019 at 7:40 AM
Post to The Age (10/10/2019) on 11/10/2019)
Commenting on “Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-say-a-lack-of-qualified-teachers-is-turning-students-off-maths-20191010-p52zl0.html

The experts study should go beyond or rather before Year 7 in order to find out the root cause of the problem.

During mid-2018, I requested and was granted the opportunity to volunteer in a primary school, and unexpectedly assigned to help students from Prep to Year 5 in maths. I can confirm that the problems lie in the lack of strict discipline in overall class activities, insufficient time dedicated to the subject, largely not due to the fault of teachers but the system.

Maths is more complex than English as a subject, and it is a myth to believe that it easy to learn and teach. In a way maths is a language - it has syntax, semantics, rules, exceptions and variations. Maths includes more than simple arithmetic operations, but also logic of shapes, quantity, and arrangement, using numeral and symbolic representation, in single or multi dimensions.

In general basic maths is logical, but it can get too abstract for many young mind and even adults, too. Given that premise, rote learning should not be considered as outdated method of learning, discouraged or even abolished at schools.

At very young tender school age, students need to accept and memorise certain axioms, assumptions and basic formulae so that these form the foundation for students to leap frog to learning more difficult branches of maths like algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus.

Most students learnt English since the day they learnt to speak, and they continue to use it daily. Unfortunately, the time spent in learning and using maths is far too little in class and afternoon hours.

A music student or an athlete learn or practise a lot more hours daily outside class contact. Unfortunately, the abolishment of homework, including maths, seems totally illogical and debatable, if students are expected to perform well or excel In non-music and sport subjects.

The prolific growth in private tuition schools especially in maths is the result of market demand and symptomatic about the failure of how maths is taught or delivered at school. Many of these tuition schools require students to do maths exercises of specific topics repeatedly so that the students can gain skill and speed.

How can a teacher help students having large competency gap all mixed in a same class? Abolishment of streaming makes life extremely difficult for teachers to give extra attention to students who need more help. If a teacher is to offer more assistance to these students, those more competent students are being “compromised” and they tend to lose interest, resulting in mediocre performance.

A teacher good in maths may not be good in passing on his/her knowledge to the students. A teacher with higher degree in maths cannot be guaranteed to arouse the interest of a student in Prep or Year 11. In the first place, the students are not required to understand, pure maths, higher algebra, imaginary roots or complex series learnt in higher degree.

If good foundation is built in primary school, and students are interested in maths in the early years, quality of maths teachers in secondary school may not be as big a issue as it seems. It is important to recognise that the tallest building in the world has to start from ground up.

Thank you for reading.

This post and many other similar ones can be found in my Facebook group SFC Education, Teaching, Learning.

Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths