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Letter to the BOS, by Bill Pender.

Carrotsticks

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Re: The p00n thread

Just read the Pender document. For much of it, I agree. There is some opinion in there, naturally, but the opinions are often based on rather logical reasoning. For example, choice of notation may initially appear to be something based on opinion, but it could be done to avoid notation clashes with other topics (most certainly not something up for opinion).
 

Sy123

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I'm no mathematician nor a school teacher. But I read through the document and I agree with some points, on others however I disagree greatly.

He seems to be greatly concerned about the difficulty of the courses. In my opinion mathematics should be difficult, it should challenge students and force them to think logically. What is the point in doing a maths exam if you have seen every single question before?

For instance he said:
(Under the Advanced Specimen paper)

That the simplification of

is beyond the capability of his 2 unit students.

And implying that students would need a compound angle formula
This is of course ridiculous as the maths courses should reward thinking, not mindless formula usage. I sincerely hope that all of his students at his prestigious school would be able to do this question.

I think he is vastly underestimating Advanced maths students. The letter does raise a few good points however.
Overall it seems he wants to make the Advanced course easier, and remove the harder types of questions in Induction for 3U (such as advancement by 2), which will make course easier.

Whether maths should be difficult or not is up to opinion, and in my opinion it should be difficult enough so that if you are doing Maths you dont take it as a joke.

In my opinion the exams should be structured in a way such that MOST top students get:

100% - Adv
85% - Extension 1
70% - Extension 2

Difficulty of the exams should be constructed such that these marks are obtained by the top students (not the very top, some of the math pros will obviously get higher).
 

cutemouse

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Where are the draft syllabi that he's referring to? And the specimen papers?

He seems to not like or know a lot about statistics though. I'm sure he would've done some statistics in university... Was statistics not a part of university mathematics courses in the 70's? That would answer his question about why 'n-1' is used instead of 'n' (reason being to ensure that it is an unbiased estimator...)
 

cutemouse

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Also, I think the Central Limit Theorem SHOULD be in statistics, perhaps with restrictions on its applications. It's a very important and interesting result in statistics. My guess is that, respectfully, Dr Pender doesn't understand it?

By the way, I think Pender has retired from SGS, because he had like 3 heart attacks...

Also, I don't think that's the document being referred to... There is no formula in p73, or even dot point 4...
 

Peeik

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Where did you find the letter spiral?

Also, three cheers for ODEs in the draft syllabus but wow its getting a hammered view by Dr. Pender
 
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SpiralFlex

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I was googling random stuff late and night and I somehow stumbled across the letter.
 

seanieg89

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Where are the draft syllabi that he's referring to? And the specimen papers?

He seems to not like or know a lot about statistics though. I'm sure he would've done some statistics in university... Was statistics not a part of university mathematics courses in the 70's? That would answer his question about why 'n-1' is used instead of 'n' (reason being to ensure that it is an unbiased estimator...)
His dot point was not on why that is the case, but on what teachers should understand about it and what they are expected to say to students as justification.
 

Trebla

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I think I've seen this letter linked on the forums here before. He is referring to a draft syllabus which I think has since been scrapped or is in limbo. It is not a comment on the current syllabus. He wants more pure mathematics and virtually zero statistics which I guess is expected given his background.
 

Carrotsticks

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I wish that all Extension 2 students will have the necessary and sufficient knowledge to attempt the STEP papers.
 

SpiralFlex

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I wish that all Extension 2 students will have the necessary and sufficient knowledge to attempt the STEP papers.
The first parts are attemptable, second part was mechanics of which not included in mx2 last part was probability.

Do you know what syllabus the STEP papers follow?
 

Carrotsticks

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The first parts are attemptable, second part was mechanics of which not included in mx2 last part was probability.

Do you know what syllabus the STEP papers follow?
Not sure of one being followed.

The first parts often have second order DE's, which cannot be done using methods taught in MX2.
 

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