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How do you feel about the Maths forum?

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Original post by notnek
But you don't need to be a professional teacher to have this skill. There are plenty of excellent non-teacher helpers in this forum.


With due respect, however good an 'amateur' is they have not been trained in maths pedagogy - they don't have the background of many years in a classroom teaching thousands of children of all abilities.
I'd personally try to get some of the people who got a high C on foundation tier to help out people trying to get from a D to a C. If they're aiming for a C from the foundation papers then help from students who are more used to higher tier questions isn't always going to be the best.
Original post by ghostwalker
I see "Important - Please read" has sunk to twelfth place on that forum.
Perhaps a rating of "Extra sticky" would put it back at the top.

Feel bad? No, I don't feel feel bad when the forum is cluttered with stickies, just irritated.
PRSOM :smile:
Original post by Muttley79
With due respect, however good an 'amateur' is they have not been trained in maths pedagogy - they don't have the background of many years in a classroom teaching thousands of children of all abilities.

They may be able to help but I sometimes find the methods offered aren't really the best.

One could argue that teachers don't have the experience of helping students in a forum based environment.

Some of the helpers who have been on here for a long time have developed teaching skills and are just as good as teachers if not better in some cases in my opinion. Some non-teachers on here have also helped 1000s of students of varying abilities.

I helped on TSR for a long time before I became a teacher and I don't think teaching professionally has changed the way I help on here.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Muttley79
With due respect, however good an 'amateur' is they have not been trained in maths pedagogy - they don't have the background of many years in a classroom teaching thousands of children of all abilities.
With all due respect, however good a teacher is, they have not been trained in helping people on forums. They don't have the background of many years on a forum helping thousands of forum users of all abilities.

[Excepting Mr M, of course. He has both sets of experience].

Bickering aside, there are some very good 'amateur' helpers on here, and while there's also a lot of misguided help from amateurs, I can assure you there have also been some pretty awful posts from qualified teachers.

(It's also worth noting that most lecturers have no training in teaching, and the universities seem to think it works OK. (The students may disagree!). I certainly had no teacher training before being asked to supervise - but funnily enough, 3 years of being taught by experts does give you some idea of how to convey thoughts and ideas, at least in a 1-1 scenario).

FWIW, I'd be really surprised if I haven't got more people through the STEP exams (via my efforts on here) than any single maths teacher you know in the comprehensive school system. (Mainly the students own work of course, but that's true anywhere).

Edit: notnek + I obviously having some overlap of thought here!
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Gingerbread101
This would be a good project for one of our Maths ST or CAs to try to get running :h: @Indeterminate @rayquaza17 @surina16 @NiamhM1801 let me know if any of you are up to it :tongue:


What is it exactly?
Original post by DFranklin

FWIW, I'd be really surprised if I haven't got more people through the STEP exams (via my efforts on here) than any single maths teacher you know in the comprehensive school system. (Mainly the students own work of course, but that's true anywhere).

Edit: notnek + I obviously having some overlap of thought here!

That's quite a claim. You might be more famous in Cambridge than Issac Newton!

I made the bold claim a few months back that Zacken could have helped more different people in maths over the last year than anyone else in the world.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by ghostwalker
I see "Important - Please read" has sunk to twelfth place on that forum.
Perhaps a rating of "Extra sticky" would put it back at the top.

Feel bad? No, I don't feel feel bad when the forum is cluttered with stickies, just irritated.

Unfortunately extra sticky isn't something we can do, I've changed the colour of the thread to make it stand out a little more though
Original post by Muttley79
With due respect, however good an 'amateur' is they have not been trained in maths pedagogy - they don't have the background of many years in a classroom teaching thousands of children of all abilities.

They may be able to help but I sometimes find the methods offered aren't really the best.

TSR has always encouraged students to help each other - the contributions of teachers are of course welcomed and valued, but this doesn't make other students any less valued. Speaking from experience on the site, people learn in different ways and often traditional teaching methods just don't work. But either way, no one should be discouraged from helping if they have the correct knowledge :smile:
Original post by notnek
That's quite a claim. You might be more famous in Cambridge than Issac Newton!To be fair, I have access to far more STEP entrants than any comprehensive school teacher is likely to.

But IIRC there was a noticable blip in the number of people getting SS in STEP (nationwide) the year I started posting on here, and you could pretty much account for it by the number of people who got SS on TSR that year. (Remember that back then, it was hard to find people who could really help with STEP, so it was easier to make a difference).

Edit: For a "stranger" claim to fame in Cambridge, for a while if you googled images of Stephen Siklos, one of the top hits would be a photochop I did of him with the Startrek facepalm image! (Edit to edit: it was this post but the attachment has been broken. I'll have to see if I can dig it up on my old PC).
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Gingerbread101
This would be a good project for one of our Maths ST or CAs to try to get running :h: @Indeterminate @rayquaza17 @surina16 @NiamhM1801 let me know if any of you are up to it :tongue:


I'm not volunteering this time, but you may like to see here for previous discussion on an index - post #160 or 170 onwards.
Hate it, to hard to understand.
Original post by Callummmm-13768
Hate it, to hard to understand.

What level do you study at? :smile: does the difficulty of the other questions in the forum discourage you from posting?
Original post by Gingerbread101
What level do you study at? :smile: does the difficulty of the other questions in the forum discourage you from posting?

Im at GCSE study, missed out on 6 marks first time round:dots: get my result again tomorrow, hopefully i passed.
I'm not a regular poster here. Over my almost decade long membership here I have probably posted here less than a dozen times. But after reading this thread it does appear that it is less active than I remember it being every time previously I have stopped by. There are threads over two days old on the front page!

Whenever I see a question that is quite mathsy in the engineering forum I move it here, although that only accounts for a very small amount of threads here in total. I'm not actually sure what the reason is behind the fall in activity, although this is still one of the more active academic forums, I'd imagine. Certainly busier than physics (not that I post there much, either).

On the other hand, though, surely this also means that those who do post here are more likely to receive more comprehensive help regarding their problem?
Reply 134
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S2M
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Original post by Callummmm-13768
Im at GCSE study, missed out on 6 marks first time round:dots: get my result again tomorrow, hopefully i passed.


Did you do the November re-sit?
Original post by DFranklin


FWIW, I'd be really surprised if I haven't got more people through the STEP exams (via my efforts on here) than any single maths teacher you know in the comprehensive school system. (Mainly the students own work of course, but that's true anywhere).

Edit: notnek + I obviously having some overlap of thought here!


Really? Who said I teach in a comprehensive school anyway? I'm not going to get into a tit-for-tat but you know nothing about my career and cannot possible make that statement.

I've been on here quite a while too and usually just get on with the threads no-one else bothers with as I have time during the teaching day.
Original post by Callummmm-13768
Im at GCSE study, missed out on 6 marks first time round:dots: get my result again tomorrow, hopefully i passed.

Good luck:h:
Ye @S2M
Reply 138
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S2M
22
Original post by Callummmm-13768
Ye @S2M


Ohh you get your results tomorrow??
Original post by Muttley79
Really? Who said I teach in a comprehensive school anyway? I'm not going to get into a tit-for-tat but you know nothing about my career and cannot possible make that statement.

I've been on here quite a while too and usually just get on with the threads no-one else bothers with as I have time during the teaching day.

I really thing you've got the wrong end of the stick here.

DFranklin has been helping students for years pass the STEP exam. He's not just helped more STEP students than you and I, he's probably helped more students than any teacher in the country (not just Comprehensive teachers).

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