Mathematics

Premises

1. The bottom line of any teacher's raison d'étre should be the education of their charges in such a way that they, the students, receive the best possible by way of instruction.
2. Teachers should be encouraged professionally to develop their skills at all levels of the subject. In the event that they do not, it is not long before their expertise becomes narrow and perhaps of little value to the faculty.

Background

How often has it been said: 'Oh, you're the 4 Unit teacher, aren't you?' I would hasten to say that it has been uttered many a time, albeit quite innocently(?).

While there is some obvious kudos associated with being able to actually teach this level of mathematics, for any who have embarked on this exercise it can be quite draining of one's energies.

Seemingly, one needs to be some sort of superhuman to teach 4 Unit!

None of us would dispute that much effort needs to be consciously applied to the initial study of its content so as to be able to teach it, and given that we have sufficient of that rare commodity - time - and practise available to us, we are then able to hone up the skills. I would be interested to know just how many of us, here, would jump at the chance of being asked today to derive the tangential and normal components of the force acting on a particle moving in a circle of radius R, or of developing a recurrence relation in some integral.

Some questions

Feel no compulsion to answer these here and now - at least not publicly.

1. Just how many of the eight sections of the 4 Unit syllabus are you familiar enough with to act as a peer tutor?
2. How do you feel after five months of before/after school lessons, three times a week? [Wait until October, then it will have been nine months!]

   Consider the amount of preparation that you are presently putting into the work, the half-yearly, and then the trials. And, of course, you seem to be doing it on your own.

3. What happens if you go off sick for six weeks?

   Consider the situation where you are in control of a staff of maths people who are all experienced (not in the sense of our friend earlier).

4. What is the frequency of any one staff member having the opportunity to teach 4 Unit?

Consider what happens next ...

Some person, next year, has an enormous job load - since, not being practised, it is not familiar to that person.

These issues are real.

Considering the above and attempting to address as many of the areas as possible so as to have the best for our students, I floated an idea that had been brewing for some considerable time. Share the job. That's right ...

Share

1. the glory;
2. the angst;
3. the preparation;
4. the early mornings;
5. the marking;
6. the collating;
7. the reporting.

Become a proactive support person to your peers. Gradually bring in the 'new', while allowing another some respite, before being called on again to do what they do well.

The process explained

1. Divide the syllabus into four strands.
2. Four teachers to begin on a circle.
3. One other teacher to act as 'consultant'. (No load allocation)
4. Load allocations for the four teachers are 1/4 of the periods. In practice, this could pose some concerns. An illustration:

   2 Unit = 10 periods/fortnight;
   3 Unit = 15 periods/fortnight;
   therefore 4 Unit = 20 periods/fortnight

   Hence the five periods becomes: 5/4 = 2 per teacher/year.
5. Assume a start as commencement of Term 4, Year 11.
6. Strand A - Term 4, Year 11.
   Starnd B, Stand C, Stand D - in terms 1, 2, 3, of Year 12.
7. Allow approximately 8 weeks/strand on average.
8. As the cycle ends, one staff member comes out and another goes in. The staff member coming out acts as consultant next year, before rejoining the ranks the year after.
9. Firts timers are eased in and progress through, in the company of more experienced staff and one consultant.
10. Sounding boards exist, peer tutors soon abound.

A. Premises

1. 4 'strands'
2. First strand to commence in Term 4, Year 11.
3. Not all staff necessarily have experience of all content.

B. Content topics

1. Graphs.
2. Complex numbers.
3. Conics.
4. Integration.
5. Volumes.
6. Mechanics.
7. Polynomials.
8. Harder 3 Unit topics.

C. Suggested Pairings

C.1	Graphs Conics	Neither requires in-depth knowledge of Year 12, 3 Unit work. Graphs would facilitate some conics work. Relatively straightforward.
C.2	Complex numbers Polynomials	Complex numbers needed for polynomials. Polynomials needs to be covered in 3 Unit by early Term 1 at latest.
C.3	Integration Volumes	A natural 'couple'. Teach integration before volumes.
C.4	Mechanics	A reasonable calculus mastery required beforehand.
	Harder 3 Unit topics	Wherever possible, the Year 12, 3 Unit Class 1 teacher takes this. As this person has the finger on the pulse of depth the 4 Unit class has treated 3 Unit work. While some time allocation should be made, often this section of the course can be treated as and when it is opportune.

---

| Copyright | Disclaimer | Contact Us | Help