I'm a Senior Mathematics Teacher in South East Melbourne.
I've been teaching for 3 years, this is my fourth year on the job, and I absolutely love it.
I teach primarily Year 11 and 12 VCE Maths Methods and Specialist Maths.
Fire away!
[AMA] I'm a High School Maths Teacher. Ask Me Anything!
MathNerd on 01/05/2018 - 08:52
closed Comments
Thanks, can you elaborate more about the ranges? What do they mean???
and to be fair, this is a AMA thread
Years of service and level of experience, basically.
Also: This is the document specifically for VIC. I don't know about other states.
@MathNerd: Doesn't really tell me much
So what's the difference between Range 1-5 and 2-5?
And also, if all goes well, is it possible to be a teacher straight out of Uni like at the age of 21 or 22?
@Homr:
As I said, the range you are on is determined, basically, by how many years you've been teaching. If you're straight out of uni, you'll be on 1-1.The difference between Range 1-5 and 2-5 is 5 years of teaching experience (assuming all reviews along the way have been passed).
Yes, it is possible to be a teacher straight out of uni, assuming you have the necessary teaching qualifications. I began my teaching career at the age of 23.
@MathNerd: Cool, thanks for your response
So does that mean you're on range 1-4? :D
Not bad for a 26yr old
@Homr: No, I'm not there yet. I'll be there at the end of this year or the start of next year hopefully.
I did pure and applied maths at uni. the pure maths questions generally asked to show some equation = another equation. I would work from the top down until I got stuck, then work from the bottom up until I got stuck. My link between the 2 was "therefore it is obvious" and most of the time I got full marks. A teacher once told me this is lazy marking - as long as you have the right answer they tick the boxes. What do you think about this comment?
I also did pure and applied maths, and pure maths definitely didn't do the trick for me. Pure maths was "mathematician's maths", whereas applied maths was more differential equations and modelling. I fall into the latter camp, by a very far margin.
A lot of textbooks have the line "The proof of this is trivial and is left as an exercise for the reader" which I laughed at.
I think it is important to show sufficient working that demonstrates your thought process, and the leaps in logic from one step to another are reasonable.
Maths teacher……. I still get shivers every time I hear those words…..lol
Question: Is it true that 1+1=1 ?
Haha, why is that?
Is it true that 1+1=1? I believe that 1+1=2. I'd leave these sorts of discussions to mathematicians, which I am not.
Well, in my field of work (technical engineering) I was always told that 1+1=1. I'll give you a hint. It starts with "B" :)
In computer science, 1 + 1 = 10.
Yes, when you start going to different number sytems (Binary, Trenary, etc), then things start looking very strange.
This sort of maths is termed "Modulo". Such as 10 + 5 modulo 8 is 7.
I studied that as part of a pure maths unit at uni but I didn't much take a liking to pure maths.…I didn't much take a liking to pure maths.
I also have little time as to whether something is a Lemma, Theorem, Proposition or Corollary.
@Homr:
"Solve" isn't the correct word.
You mean"Evaluate" or "Calculate".
Your line evaluates to i 8 sum pi.boolean in C
@TheGhostWhoWalks: True, but in the context of mathematics (at least at a high school level), we use the word "solve" to mean "solve this equation: 2x + 5 = 17 for x", and "calculate" to mean "calculate the product of 5 and x".
If I combined 2 glasses of water on a table into 1 glass, how many glasses of water would there be left on the table?
Kudos OP. It is so great to hear from a teacher that is both passionate and competent. Having graduated from a public high school, teachers who fit that criteria are few and far between.
Well done!
Thank you, I really appreciate those supportive and kind words.
How can I use advanced maths in real life situation
Short answer: You don't.
Long answer: You don't.Oh there's plenty of opportunities, as long as you can score a gig.
Weather Forecasting, Actuarial, Accounting (haha kidding), Engineering, Mining, blah blah.
True. However your answers are occupation specific. I think the question was more geared towards how advanced maths can be used in your everyday life, while going about your business. Apart from adding, subtracting, multiplying, and maybe dividing, maths doesn't really enter people's lives. That's a bit a sad in my opinion but the same goes for Biology, Chemistry, Physics even. These are specialised disciplines that don't really enter the life of the average Jane or average Joe.
Why does Pi work?
π is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter.
That's really exciting.I find the golden ratio more exciting!
Yes, the golden ratio is lovely too.
Why is analytic calculus overtaught in school when numeric methods are far more general and even getting more accurate than the analytic equivalent?
Interesting question.
The analytical thought process I believe is far more beneficial.I can't forgive analytic calculus until it provides degree 5 and above general roots and general elliptic integrals. Instead, it's 10,000 page proofs of why quintic roots don't exist, unless you are one of the smartest people on Earth who shortened the proof down to 6 pages. It's flawed for real world situations. They show roller coaster loops on many analytic physics textbooks, when in the real world, roller coasters are designed using numerics because analytical methods are ugly broken messes. Do check out the full equations for just quartic roots for a laugh.
Take, for example, the elliptical arc length. You can program AGM numeric methods for fast, accurate results. The analytic mathematician has basically nothing. It comes up quite a lot in spline positioning.
You're right, mathematics applied to real life situations always results in 'ugly' numbers because you can't restrict your polynomials for example to be quadratics with integer coefficients.
Numerical methods are certainly invaluable here, indeed they're far more beneficial than an exact analytical solution.
However, in terms of basic high school calculus, an analytical approach to learning the topic certainly deserves the time of day, as you can appreciate the thinking process behind all the steps, not to mention the underlying beauty within.
Sad though that real world situations can't be modelled with 'nice' functions, but that's just the nature of the beast.
Maths Teacher or not, anyone prepared to put up with teenagers on a daily basis has got my vote.
How many decimal points can you remember pi(π) to? (no cheating by googling now)
Honestly, I only know 3.14159265359. I think that's… 11 decimal places?
I also do know that the exact speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. I guess that's useful too?
Why do you use empirical when we use matric system. Miles, seriously!
Edit: perhaps you meant meter/seconds.
It is meters per second.
Perhaps you meant Imperial when we use Metric system.
Yes, I meant metres per second. m/s is the scientifically accepted way to abbreviate metres per second.
@MathNerd: Some crazy physicists also use (m⋅s⁻¹)! But really, we all know that c = ħ = G = k = 1.
Also: when will OzBargain support mathJAX and code snippets?
So if a parsec is the distance travelled in one year at the speed of light how many klms is that My calculator can't get that far just show E after a while LOL
All i know is the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.
That's an oldie biggest blooper of the movie LOL
Parsec is a measure of distance not time.
I did love the movie though.I like these 2 reasons why.
In Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, Han Solo boasted about the speed of his spaceship by claiming it made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, despite a parsec being a unit of distance. (In the novelization, he said, "less than twelve standard timeparts."[3]) Screenwriter George Lucas claimed the seeming gaffe in the film was intentional, showing that Han was something of a bull artist who didn't always know precisely what he was talking about.[4]
Within the Expanded Universe, Kevin J. Anderson later retconned an explanation: the Kessel Run is through the Maw. Event horizons around black holes are dependent on the speed at which you are traveling. A standard ship has to do the run in eighteen parsecs because to cut the route any closer, the ship would get sucked in.
Falcon-SAG
The Millennium Falcon.
The Falcon, however, is fast enough to straighten the route and cut over six parsecs off the distance traveled.
The director's commentary on the Blu-Ray Star Wars set explains that hyperspace travel requires heavy computation to compute a path that does not cause you to fly through a star. The Millennium Falcon has customized computation engines that calculate shorter hyperspace paths more quickly than those in other ships. Shorter distances mean faster travel times. The Falcon reduces travel times by a combination of being faster in a traditional sense, and by using more accurate navigation calculations.Courtesy of Wookieepedia
LOL thanks for that one however the wiki doesn't account that at Hyperspace speeds you can actually jump through stars.
As the gravity well caused by the folding of space displaces the matter stream of the star and there is so small billionth of a second transversal time reality is altered
Source Perry Rhodan Sci Fi Novels ;)
That's 3 more than me. And it was only that many because that is all I could enter into the calculator when in high school.
How I wish I could calculate pi
May I have a large container of coffee?- count the letters in each word :)
If you are talking about important stuff - Acceleration due to Gravity is 9.81m/s
9.81 m/s^2 actually (in fact, it depends where on Earth you are located, at the Equator it's a bit less due to being further from the centre, and at the poles it's larger due to being closer to the centre of the Earth).
How many works do you work per week during the school term and during school holidays?
How many works do I work per week? I guess I work a lot of work.
how many "hours"
sorry typoIf I average it out, during school terms I work about 10 hours per working day (M-F), and about 3 hours per day on the weekend. So that's 56 hours per week during school term.
During the holidays I'll have a few days where I smash out 7 or 8 hours of work, and others where I'll be lucky to have done 1 hour. There's always something more to do, so I'm never really left with a feeling of "Oh, I'm out of things to work on".
I know the numbers might seem a bit high, but I do devote a lot of time to my job, and I might even be an outlier. I know plenty of teachers in the same boat as me as well.
Do you watch the show numb3rs?
No I don't. I've seen a few episodes a few years ago but never developed a deep interest in it.
Whats the highest score your students have scored in both Math Methods and Specialist?
2017 (last year) was the first time I taught Year 12. I only had one Year 12 class, and it was Year 12 Specialist Maths. The highest score there was 48 raw, which scaled to ~55. An absolutely insane score. I teach Year 12 Methods and Specialist this year, so I'm awaiting the results that'll come out at the end of this year!
Wow, that's amazing. Good luck this year!
Cheers, thanks!
It appears you are somewhat constrained by curriculum and rules of your school from any diversion to make learning fun? In a subject module of one of my Diplomas a few years ago our teacher who was a real school teacher with Dip Ed. Masters etc. (Not necessarily maths)
He Conveyed to us the importance of making learning fun to engage students as opposed to the learn by rote, repeat, rinse scenarios that I back in the days early 70's was taught.
I have always thought to provide examples of maths through physics and construction experiments are good, but does your school allow that kinda flexibility? I refer to things such as making a working Maglev model (educational kits available) and using maths in a real world way by building a scale house etc where calculations are relevant to the success of the building?
Do you think these things have value or do we (our kids for those that have them) just jump on google and use visual modelling that requires no brain functions just typing skills
Very deep insight there Shannon.
The curriculum for all subjects is quite crowded, there's a lot to teach in a very limited amount of time. Add to that the fact that students learn it at different paces, means that some topics (such as the discriminant of a quadratic) can take a whole week's worth of class time to go over until everyone understands it fully. So to go through everything in the course, is almost impossible, without leaving the majority of the class behind.
In terms of construction experiments etc, I would love to bring that into my teaching, but unfortunately my skills are extremely constrained. I have devoted so much of my life to VCE Mathematics that I don't really have any other skills (apart from professional OzBargaining of course!). I've always joked that if I didn't become a maths teacher I'd become a tradie (because I love the way tradies talk, in their crude accents). Even if I wanted to make a Maglev model or a scale house, I just won't be able to because I myself don't have that skill. I know that's pretty sad, but I've focused so much on VCE maths that I reckon I know the courses inside out, which I guess is good in a way when I'm teaching them :)
Does your students know you’re on ozbargain?
I don't think I've ever mentioned it to them! I may have inadvertently connected my laptop to the projector while OzB is open in my browser, rather than have my CAS emulator software open, but I quickly switch away anyway haha!
Whats the highest level of maths did you do at university?
Whats the highest level of maths did you do at university?
Do you mean "What's the highest level of maths that you did at university"?
The highest level of maths I studied at university was Asymptotic Series and Perturbation Theory (during Honours). I've forgotten the majority of it though.
How strict are you to your students? Do you often hand out after school detentions?? or even Saturday detentions??
I see myself as quite a relaxed teacher, I've never given a detention. I've sent students to the coordinators at times, but on the whole I tend to have pretty good classes!
Have you ever considered going all Breaking Bad but in a maths kind of way, like counting cards at a Casino, analysing pokie machine algorithms to work out which one will pay next and then gaming them to make millions, etc?
Have you ever considered going all Breaking Bad but in a maths kind of way, like counting cards at a Casino, analysing pokie machine algorithms to work out which one will pay next and then gaming them to make millions, etc?
It's been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_(2008_film)
No I haven't ever considered that, the worst I've done is stack multiple discounts etc to get things for really cheap (as any professional OzBargainer would).
Three men (side story: one of them can't handle spicy but he got dragged along so the other two could split the bill with him) go to KFC for lunch and are ordering at the counter.
They ordered 5 "Hot and Spicy" boxes and produced a feedback form for free chips and drinks and were told that the total comes to $30, so each man pays $10. The KFC manager realises the bill should only be $25 as per this deal (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/372727), so he asks the cashier to return $5 to the men. Each man takes back $1, and they tell the cashier to keep the remaining $2 to buy himself some eneloops.
Each man now has $1 back in his pocket, meaning they each paid $9 for the meal. That comes to a total of $27. The cashier received $2 (eneloop money).
27+2=29
If the men originally coughed up $30 but now, only $29 is now accounted for, should the Colonel be sued for that missing $1?????You got it wrong. You wrote 27+2=30 but it's 27-2=25.
Username definitely checks out.
To answer your question, the $27 already includes the cashier's tip. To add the $2 to the $27 would be to double-count it. So, the three mens' cost of the meals, including the cashier's tip, is $27. Each of the 3 men has $1 in his pocket, totaling $3. When added to the $27 revised cost of the meals (including tip to the cashier), the total is $30.
To obtain a sum that totals to the original $30, every dollar must be accounted for, regardless of its location.
Do you have any recommendations for young children, 5-6-year-olds. anything they could do now that would help them with maths later ?
Welcome to OzB.
You joined just to ask this question? Not bad.
I'm not a primary school teacher, and don't know what a young child could do at that age to help with maths later. I would say, make a head start on their times tables and learn adding and subtracting numbers well, as these skills will be used in later years (and in life too, if I may say)!
I used to love playing "make 24" in south africa. Highly recommend it! Sit in a circle with a group of the cards and first one to collect the most wins!
Should calculus be renamed to gibberish?
Definitely not. It's such a beautiful part of maths. One of the best inventions/discovery of humanity. Newton and Leibniz weren't messing around.
Without Calculus the world would not be the same today.
So many industries and related technologies has came about from calculus.Agreed.
Where in rural did they send you for your first placement?
My first placement was in Karingal.
Which textbook does your school use, and do you think said textbook is better than the others? Also, not sure if I can ask this but I'll do so anyway, do you write your own SACs, or do you source them from elsewhere? It seems to be getting more and more common that students are able to obtain practise SACs with near, if not identical, questions prior to the actual thing.
We use the Cambridge Senior Mathematics: VCE books. Each publisher's books has its pros and cons. You can't rely solely on the textbooks to learn the course, you really need a teacher to go through the content and explain concepts dynamically and visually to get a full understanding.
At the school I'm at, we make our own SACs. I do know that some schools purchase SACs and just change around numbers etc, but we definitely don't do that.
SAC?
School Assessed Coursework. Usually comes in the form of a written/oral test, or a week(-ish) long project, depending on the subject.
Hi,
A few questions;
- I'm generalizing quite a bit here, but I've generally had two types of teachers:
* Ones that make classes engaging/interesting with their personality or other creative devices.
* Teachers who stick to the curriculum and material and enjoy dumping their knowledge on you.
Have you observed any 'stereotypes' in your career and do you think you fall into one?What inspired you to be a teacher?
Has teaching always been a career interest for you after finishing high school?
Being a young teacher, have you noticed students treat or talk to you differently? (I'm assuming the other teachers in your school are older)
Are dealing with parents as bad as the media reports? or are they generally reasonable/level-headed?
What do you think the largest misconception of teachers are?
Do schools enforce a dress code to its teachers?
Welcome to OzBargain. You too have joined just to ask your questions?
I'm generalizing quite a bit here, but I've generally had two types of teachers:
* Ones that make classes engaging/interesting with their personality or other creative devices.
* Teachers who stick to the curriculum and material and enjoy dumping their knowledge on you.
Have you observed any 'stereotypes' in your career and do you think you fall into one?I think your generalisation is pretty valid. From my experience though, I've seen more of the former, where teachers are engaging and make the classes interesting. I think I fall into this category. Look, I think if you really enjoy your subject, you will want your students to share in this enjoyment and will show this enjoyment via your enthusiasm at the front of the class. If you ask any one of my students what they think about me, they'd probably say "Yeah, he loves his maths a bit too much, he gets very enthusiastic about maths". I don't mind that!
What inspired you to be a teacher?
Initially, I wanted a job where I could get paid for doing maths problems (from textbooks, past exam papers, etc), and this is pretty much the only job that pays you to do that! But as I thought about it more, I wanted to pass on my love of maths to the next generation. I guess that's what inspired me.
Has teaching always been a career interest for you after finishing high school?
I finished high school thinking "How could I do more maths? I've done a lot in school but I want to do more!", so without reinventing the wheel, my answer is here. I went through a few thought processes before deciding on this career.
Being a young teacher, have you noticed students treat or talk to you differently? (I'm assuming the other teachers in your school are older)
For sure. I think they feel they can more easily relate to me, and we have a lot of fun learning maths in my classes.
Are dealing with parents as bad as the media reports? or are they generally reasonable/level-headed?
No, it's not as bad as it's made out to be. Every parent I've dealt with has been professional, reasonable and takes a deep interest in their child's education.
What do you think the largest misconception of teachers are?
Definitely that we've got the easiest job in the world, can clock off at 3:15 and go home and lounge about. That is the furthest from the truth. We all work very hard to ensure that we give our students the best education they can get, with whatever resources we have available to us.
Do schools enforce a dress code to its teachers?
That depends on the school, and can also depend on the position a teacher has. For example, a teacher might also do year level coordination so in that case would have to dress in more professional business attire. Most schools would just say that smart casual or semi-professional is good enough. I myself wear formal clothes (shirt [but no tie], long pants and black shoes), but there's teachers that wear T-shirts, shorts and sneakers. Anything reasonable is acceptable.
I hope this answers your questions!
Because you've gone from school-school-school, does it ever feel like your trapped, living the same existence but in different roles?
No, I don't think I'm trapped, I guess I was cut out to be in the school system forever! I loved school when I was a student and didn't want to leave! And here I am (though not at the same school I was a student at!).
I love VCE maths, and my job allows me to pass that on. That's priceless.
What's your salary?
And what's salary for head of departments? E.g Head of Mathematics, Head of Science, Head of house, etc