Google and some of the other search engines know so much about you when you search the internet that they tailor the results so they give you what they think you might want based on everything that they know about you including:

• what you have searched for in the past,
• what websites you have visited recently,
• where you live,
• even things like your gender and your age.

So how can you get WHAT YOU WANT rather than what the search engine wants to give you?

Save Time Getting Good Quality Information From the Internet

Search engines will usually give you millions of websites when you are looking for something – I just searched for ‘quadratic equations’ on Google and got 3,010,000 results.

The trouble is that the information YOU require may not be in the top 10, or 20, or 30 websites suggested – this is INFORMATION OVERLOAD!

Advanced Search – How to Get Better Results When You Search

Google offers Advanced Search so you can get more targeted results – I explain how below. Many of the other search engines do not have this feature so you will need to do a search on ‘advanced search’ for the search engine you use and see what you can find. When I searched for ‘advanced search on Bing’ I found that you have to use special operator codes to do more refined searches which you can find here: Bing Query Language: Advanced Operator Reference

Finding+Advanced+Search

How to Find Google Advanced Search

1. Go to www.google.com
2. Type in ‘advanced search in google’
3. Hopefully it will return a website such as www.google.com/advanced_search
4. Alternatively, once you have done any search there will be a little box in the top right-hand corner of the window containing a small cog-like image with 6 teeth. Click on this image and you will get access to ADVANCED SEARCH.

Once you are on Google’s Advanced Search Page you can narrow your results in a variety of ways:

• all these words
• this exact word or phrase
• any of these words
• none of these words
• numbers ranging from – to –

Google+Advanced+Search+Window

You can also restrict the search by such things as: region, language, or file type.

How to Search All the Pages in Just One Website

A really useful option is to search all the pages in one specific website. This is useful for sites which don’t have their own search facility or the search facility doesn’t work very well.

Using Shortcuts in the Search Box

Here are a few quick shortcuts that you can use in Google’s normal search box to save you using Advanced Search:

• +word = must include this word on the page
• -word = must not contain this word on the page
• “more words” = must contain this exact word or phrase on the page

An example search: “advanced search” +Bing -Google

This search will return all pages which contain the phrase ‘advanced search’ and the word ‘Bing’ but will exclude pages that contain the word ‘Google’.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

Go back to Catalog of Articles

Keep Your Computer Data Secure

The Case of the Missing Essay

I was working with a Grade 11 student the other day who wanted help with an English essay he was writing on his laptop. When he turned his computer on he couldn’t find the essay. I asked him where he had saved it – he said he couldn’t remember – he just saved it where the computer suggested.

Then I asked him what he called it – he wasn’t sure about that either – he couldn’t remember if he used the name suggested – something like Document1.doc – or if he had called it ‘essay.doc’ – or even ‘Englishessay.doc’.

We spent a few minutes trying to find where he put it but it wasn’t in any of the likely places. He was about to give up and start writing it again.

I then used advance search skills to find all the files that were altered on the day he wrote the first draft and was able to find it – under the name ‘assignment2.doc’.

The moral of the story is: Always name your computer files in a way that makes them easy to find. Find out how below:

MAKE SURE YOU TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THESE STRATEGIES AND CHECK UP ON THEM REGULARLY TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE FOLLOWING THEM ALL THE TIME.

Strategy 1: Naming Documents and Other Computer Files So You Can Find Them Easily

The golden rule for filing is to store the file so you can find it in 30 seconds.

Get everyone in your family to use these techniques:

• FOLDERS: Set up a folder system so that there is a folder for every area of your life, for every subject at school, for every person who uses the computer, for every year, and so on. Before you save any new document make sure you save it in the most appropriate folder.

• ADD THE DATE: Many documents benefit from having the date in their file name. Dates are best put at the start of the file name in reverse order YYMMDD – the reverse order means that they will appear in the folder in date order. That means that a document created on 11/3/2012 might be called ‘120311 Study Notes on Cells Chapter 5.doc’ and will appear after ‘120129 Study Notes on Plants Chapter 5.doc’ in your Science folder.

• KEEP UPDATED VERSIONS OF FILES THAT REQUIRE REVISION: When working on a major piece of work like a power point presentation, an essay, or a major project it is a good idea to keep different versions of the document as you progress, and delete the working versions when you finish the task. The easiest way to do this is to date the filename, changing the date every time you start working on the document like this: ‘120313 PLP Project.doc’, ‘120315 PLP Project.doc’, ‘120404 PLP Project.doc’, and so on.

• FILE CLEAN-UP: At the end of each year delete documents you don’t need anymore, and put documents you want to keep into sensibly named folders. For example, School and uni students should keep all their study notes from previous years for future reference. In this case, just make a new folder with the year the work was done and transfer your files into that. For example, in your ‘Science’ folder make a new folder called ‘2011 Science Study’ and move the old files into that.

Strategy 2: Back Up Your Computer Files – It Is Worth the Trouble

Here are some NIGHTMARE STORIES:

• For external examinations in Australia such as those at the end of Year 12, loss of data for any reason (such as theft, computer malfunction, and even acts of god) is not an acceptable excuse for not handing up assignments on time. This can result in failure in the subject and lower aggregate marks for university entrance.

• A few years ago, a Year 12 student I was helping had his bag snatched while waiting for the school bus – a car drove up to the bus stop, a man jumped out and through 5 bags into the back seat and drove off. Every bag had a laptop in it. The students managed to get their bags back – they had been thrown out the window in nearby streets – AFTER THE LAPTOPS HAD BEEN REMOVED.

• Another one of my students brought an essay to work on. It was stored on a USB drive that he had been working on at school on a school computer. The disk had a new virus on it which destroyed a lot of files on my computer before my virus checker had found it. Luckily I have a good back-up system with my computers so I was able to restore the computer’s file system and data. School computers are notorious for containing viruses! Always do a virus check on any disk you put into your computer before working on any files.

• A student arrived with her computer with a USB drive sticking out of it with all her schoolwork for the year on it – and no copies of it on any of her computers. Luckily she didn’t bump it and wreck the USB drive and or the computer connection – but how she hadn’t had an accident over the previous month while she carted it around school and home I will never know.

Strategy 3: Protect Your Data from Outside Attack

Contemplate how you would feel and what you would do if you lost all your family pictures, your child lost a major assignment and so failed a subject, you lost the address list for all your friends.

PROTECT YOUR DATA! Make sure you arrange this for every member of your family and set up a timetable to make sure it happens regularly.

• Have an up-to-date reputable virus checker on every computer.

• Back up your operating system and programs at least once a month so you can restore your system after a virus attack or any other malfunction.

• Back up your personal data at least once a week and store the backup somewhere safe – I store my really important backups in a safety deposit box in the bank.

Getting Help with Backup and Security

If you don’t have the expertise to set up a backup and security system for all your computers then get someone to help you. We can at High Performance Learning advise you on how to proceed if you would like to use our services. We can also help you and/or your children set up good filing systems for paper and computer data so life becomes less stressful and more efficient for the whole family.

REMEMBER: ONCE YOU HAVE LOST YOUR IMPORTANT DOCUMENT AND PICTURE FILES THEY WILL BE GONE FOREVER – DON’T PUT OFF ENSURING YOUR DATA IS SECURE.

Other Ways to Improve Your Filing

• Learn about ways to store your computer files so you can always find them when you need them here.

• Learn how to save time and lower your stress levels with filing here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

Go back to Catalog of Articles

Computer Filing Using Folders

How are your family’s computer files?

• Well organised and easy to find.
• OR, littered all over the desktop!

Computers CAN Save You Time and Energy

An outrageous claim I know – by the time you have got your computer working and all the software installed, updated all the programs, and the virus checker, and the operating system, you might find some spare time to actually do some productive things on your computer – provided you are organised.

One of the main advantages of having a computer is the ability to reuse bits of documents you have already written to help you write new ones. Standard shopping lists, emails to friends, your letterhead, your banking information, your address list, labels for school books, labels for Christmas Cards, address labels for bills, labels with you personal details to save time filling out forms, birthday lists, essays, love letters . . . plenty of things if you put your mind to it.

Try This Exercise

Think about all the things you don’t like having to write and think about a way you can get the computer to make it easier for you in the long term – a bit of preparation now could save you hours over the next few years. If you can’t think of anything, having prepared labels of your own address details can save you having to write your name and address on forms or the back of envelopes is a good place to start.

File It on Your Computer So You Can Find It – Quickly

Why go to all the trouble of making labels for Christmas cards if you can’t find them again next year?

The same rule for filing paper applies to computers – file it so you can find it.

Fortunately, the programmers who set up the operating systems of computers designed the computer’s filing system to mimic standard physical filing systems such as suspension file systems.

Become a folder expert.

Before you start saving files get someone to show you how to make and name folders for personal data. Then get them to show you how to put folders within folders, and folders within those folders. Learn how to change the names of folders.

How To File Your Computer

• Make a separate folder for everyone that uses the computer – Name the folder with the person’s name. Then make some folders for things that are for the whole family like photos.

• Go inside each folder and make some more folders with the main areas of each person’s life. A school child should have a folder for each subject at school, a folder for sports, other interests and so on. An adult may have folders for personal correspondence, lists, finance and bills, banking, taxation, hobbies and so on.

• Sit down with the computer users one at a time and drag their files into appropriate folders, making new ones whenever necessary so there are no personal files anywhere on the computer that aren’t is personal folders.

• Insist that everyone keeps their files in appropriate folders from now on. You can police this by setting up a new folder called ‘Lost and Found’ and moving every file you find that is not in the right place into that folder. People will soon get sick of having to look in the Lost and Found folder for their files and so will be more careful with their filing in the future.

Now you know how to do it – get started.

Other Ways to Improve Your Filing

• Find out about clever ways to name files so you can find them more easily, as well as backing up your files here.

• Learn how to save time and lower your stress levels with filing here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

Go back to Catalog of Articles

Filing Saves Time

Stressed out by a piece of paper: I just spent an hour looking for a receipt that I needed to return something I had bought a few weeks ago. Normally I file things straight away – either into my In Tray or in a filing cabinet, but I must have been distracted.

I put the receipt somewhere that seemed sensible at the time – the problem was that I had lots of things on my mind so I promptly forgot what I had done.

So, not only did I waste an hour looking for the receipt, by the end of the hour my stress levels had risen and I felt quite cranky – and that happened just because I didn’t stick to my normal routine of filing.

Do you or other members of your family forget where important papers are?

Do your children lose their homework instructions?

If this happens to you, now is a good time to set up a filing system – for everyone in the family, even for children as young as 5 years old.

The Best Way to Store Papers and Documents

The method I recommend is for each person in your family to store their papers in suspension files which are kept in that person’s plastic filing box (or a proper filing cabinet).

I set this up for my daughter when she was 5 years old and it was surprising how her attitude to her belongings changed – she started looking after her things much better, and became much more interested in writing and drawing because she had her own materials and they were easy to find when she wanted them.

She had separate files for:

• information about her bike
• photos
• cards and letters
• operating instructions
• drawings
• blank paper
• scrap paper
• and so on.

To go with the filing box I also bought her containers for her desk to store stationery items such as pens, pencils, paper clips, sticky tape, staplers, rulers and glue.

Get Motivated to File

Most people hate filing their papers – they often have the intention of getting around to filing them – sometime.

Children often ‘store’ things at the bottom of their school bags or in a pile in their locker – maybe never to be seen again.

Setting up a system that makes it easy to file papers, and easy to find those papers again takes the stress out of filing so you or your child will be much more motivated to keep doing it.

The secret to becoming good at filing is to make sure that:

When you file any bit of paper you will be able it find it again a year later in less than 30 seconds.

That’s why I have suggested a suspension file system so you can group files that are related, or store them in alphabetical order.

For example, High School students should have about 4 or 5 files for each subject such as:

• Notes and Handouts

• Exercises

• Tests and Exams

• Assignment

• Study Notes

Colour-coding the files by subject is a good way to organise the files. Using a cardboard wallet file for each subject is a good way to store current work so it can travel to and from school without being lost.

Other Ways to Improve Your Filing – Filing on Your Computer

• Learn about ways to store your computer files so you can always find them when you need them here.

• Find out about clever ways to name files so you can find them more easily, as well as backing up your files here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

Go back to Catalog of Articles

Jess· and· Sam· Jump·

I· am· Jess·.

Australian results have dropped over the last 10 years

The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ does not work in education as many parents who have invested tens of thousands of dollars in private school fees have found out the hard way when their children have left school with substandard Maths or Literacy skills.

Put another way, ‘it is not how much you spend but what you spend it on that matters.’

The Australian Government has done a lot of research into educational standards over the last decade. Major reports in the areas of Literacy and Maths have revealed major problems in how children are being taught. Unfortunately, recommendations on changes to the way reading should be taught for example have not been followed by teachers on the ground, partly because of lack of training, and partly due to inertia in the complex system administered jointly by State Governments and the Australian Government.

On 15 April 2010, the then Federal Minister for Education, the Hon Julia Gillard MP, in an attempt to address the issue of unsatisfactory standards in Australian schools, initiated a review of funding arrangements for schooling to develop a funding system which is transparent, fair, financially sustainable and effective in promoting excellent educational outcomes for all Australian students.

The Review Committee was headed by David Gonski AC, a highly respected lawyer and high level businessperson. He has been actively involved in promotion of arts organisations and government policy.

The Gonski Report ‘Review of Funding For Schooling’ (December 2011)

As part of their research the committee examined the standards being achieved by our students.

• In brief, Australian educational standards in Reading, Maths and Science HAVE FALLEN SIGNIFICANTLY over the last 10 years – especially the standards achieved by our best students!

Here is the summary provided in the report:

Overall, Australia has a relatively high-performing schooling system when measured against international benchmarks, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment.

However, over the last decade the performance of Australian students has declined at all levels of achievement, notably at the top end. This decline has contributed to the fall in Australia’s international position.

In 2000, only one country outperformed Australia in reading and scientific literacy and only two outperformed Australia in mathematical literacy. By 2009, six countries outperformed Australia in reading and scientific literacy and 12 outperformed Australia in mathematical literacy.

In addition to declining performance across the board, Australia has a significant gap between its highest and lowest performing students. This performance gap is far greater in Australia than in many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, particularly those with high-performing schooling systems. A concerning proportion of Australia’s lowest performing students are not meeting minimum standards of achievement. There is also an unacceptable link between low levels of achievement and educational disadvantage, particularly among students from low socioeconomic and Indigenous backgrounds. (The Gonski Report ‘Review of Funding for Schooling’, Executive summary, page xiii)

Financial Resources Are Not Enough to Solve Our Educational Problems

The panel accepts that resources alone will not be sufficient to fully address Australia’s schooling challenges and achieve a high-quality, internationally respected schooling system. The new funding arrangements must be accompanied by continued and renewed efforts to strengthen and reform Australia’s schooling system. (The Gonski Report ‘Review of Funding for Schooling’, page xix)

It Is Quality Not Quantity That Matters In Education

A few days before the Gonski Report was made public in Australia, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) issued their Newsletter PISA In Focus 13: Does Money Buy Strong Performance in PISA? clearly demonstrating that apart from very poor countries, it is NOT MONEY THAT DETERMINES STRONG PERFORMANCE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

• Greater national wealth or higher expenditure on education does not guarantee better student performance. Among high-income economies, the amount spent on education is less important than how those resources are used. PISA In Focus 13: Does Money Buy Strong Performance in PISA?, page 1

Results from the 60 countries participating in the 2009 PISA study, showed that:

A school system’s attitudes towards teachers and students have a greater impact on student performance.

The strongest performers among high-income countries and economies tend to invest more in teachers. For example, lower secondary teachers in Korea and the partner economy Hong Kong-China, two high-performing systems in the PISA reading tests, earn more than twice the per capita GDP in their respective countries. In general, the countries that perform well in PISA attract the best students into the teaching profession by offering them higher salaries and greater professional status. This relationship between performance and teachers’ salaries does not hold among less wealthy countries and economies, however.

In all PISA-participating countries and economies, school systems that invest in higher teachers’ salaries tend to have larger classes. At the country level, PISA finds that the size of the class is unrelated to the school system’s overall performance; in other words, high-performing countries tend to prioritise investment in teachers over smaller classes. PISA In Focus 13: Does Money Buy Strong Performance in PISA?, page 3

Quality of Education Matters at High Performance Learning

Here at High Performance Learning we have been developing and running programs to compensate for the weaknesses in the education system for four decades so we are very clear about the improvements that need to be made in the way children are taught in schools. Not only are our staff highly trained and qualified, we pass on our teaching skills to the parents of the students we teach so that parents can be actively involved in their children’s education.

The most urgent changes are needed in the following subject areas because success in most other subject areas are dependent on these skills:

• Speech, listening and auditory processing skills.
• Literacy skills based on high-speed synthetic phonics.
• Physical coordination skills including proper hand writing and spelling skills.
• High level comprehension and communication skills.
• A set of conscious learning strategies – ‘learning how to learn’.
• Basic and Advanced Maths and Algebra skills.
• A ‘Growth Mindset’, stress management and emotional resilience skills.
• Independent study skills.
• Computer literacy including word processing, spreadsheet, database, graphics, video, audio, file management, and ongoing computer maintenance.

These are all areas which we address with our clients, thus enabling them to excel at their education.

To get the desired changes in educational outcomes in Australia, the Australian Government will need to address each of these areas specifically with clear step-by-step curriculums. To be realistic this will mean massive amounts of retraining of our teachers.

A much more extensive system of monitoring teachers will also be required to ensure they are implementing the curriculum properly.

The Gonski Report made similar recommendations:

• The government and ‘non-government (educational) sectors are publicly accountable for the educational outcomes achieved by students from all sources of funding.’ (The Gonski Report ‘Review of Funding for Schooling’, page xxii)
• Future funding arrangements and governance structures for schooling should aim for sustained improvements in the educational outcomes of disadvantaged students, as part of achieving better outcomes for all students. To achieve this, additional funding provided to schools to overcome disadvantage should be invested in strategies that:
  • improve practices for teaching disadvantaged students
  • strengthen leadership to drive school improvement
  • focus on early intervention for students at risk of underperformance
  • are flexibly implemented to address local needs
  • encourage parent and community engagement
  • are based on robust data and evidence that can inform decisions about educational effectiveness and student outcome. (The Gonski Report ‘Review of Funding for Schooling’, page xxii)

All great ‘motherhood’ statements – the challenge that governments and schools will face will be in the implementation of these recommendations. It is likely to take a generation to turn the system around at least.

You can’t afford to wait – if you or your child is struggling with education contact us now to find out how we can help you.

Maths Problems

Australian schools are presiding over a DUMBING DOWN of our children in the area of Mathematics.

Each year since 1995, more and more Year 12 Mathematics students in Australia opt for studying lower levels of Mathematics than the students of the previous year.

By 2004:

• Only 34.3% of Year 12 students studied Mathematics at Intermediate or Advanced Levels. In other words, two thirds of our Year 12 students leave school with only rudimentary Maths skills.
• The proportion of students only studying at Elementary Level had climbed to 46%.
• And tragically, an incredible19.7% didn’t study Mathematics at all.

For the ten years 1995–2004, the changes in the numbers of students presenting for Year 12 mathematics in Australia can be summarised as follows:

• The proportion of students taking advanced mathematics dropped from 14.1% of the Year 12 student population in 1995 to 11.7% in 2004.
• The proportion of students taking intermediate mathematics (but not advanced mathematics) dropped from 27.2% of the Year 12 student population in 1995 to 22.6% in 2004.
• The proportion of students taking elementary mathematics (but not intermediate or advanced mathematics) rose from approximately 37% of the Year 12 student population in 1995 to approximately 46% in 2004.

(‘Participation in Year 12 mathematics across Australia 1995-2004′ by Frank Barrington for the International Centre of Excellence for Education in Mathematics and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute).

The Long-Term Impact of Poor Maths Skills

A friend of mine recently completed a Nursing Degree. Of the 185 students who started the course, only 35 completed it. Most of the 150 dropouts left because they didn’t know enough basic fraction and decimal skills to pass their drug calculations test.

And, one of our clients who was studying for a Nursing Degree was the only student in his class to get full marks in his drug calculation test – every other student in the course had to re-sit the exam.

This problem extends into most other degrees which don’t have Mathematics at Year 12 as a pre-requisite. When I studied Psychology many years ago, many students failed the compulsory Statistics subjects because of poor Maths skills. Most degrees at university level include subjects on Statistics.

What This Means For Your Child

Do you want your child to go to university if he/she chooses to?

Do you want your child to get the degree he/she studies for – or to drop out?

If you answered yes to both of these questions, I suggest the following:

• You make sure that your child is in the top 10% of his/her class in Maths (and Science) right through school. If the school does not give grades then make sure your child is operating well above average and is encountering no difficulties that you can’t fix.
• Your child’s Maths grades should never get below a B, and should preferably be an A every time.
• If you don’t know what to do to fix your child’s problem contact us and we will help you fix it.
• Do not delay doing something about the problem – people do not grow out of Maths problems.

To find out more about Our Mathematics Programs click here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

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Rote Learning Maths Vs Understanding Maths

There are two basic approaches to teaching Maths:

• Getting students to repeat procedures over and over again until they are learnt like a parrot. This is the main technique used by most teachers and implied in most modern textbooks.
• Teaching students the language of Maths so they can understand the concepts and procedures and can apply them in various situations. Very few teachers use this approach and there are very few textbooks available any more that make it easy teaching this approach.

The first problem with learning things by rote is that unless they are practised regularly they will gradually be forgotten. In other words they do not stay in the long-term memory like understanding and language does – there are just too many patterns to learn and they often look similar to other patterns. Take addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions and decimals for example. Despite learning how to do this for many years in Primary and High School, very few people can still do these operations by the end of their schooling. If you don’t believe me, make up a quick test of these skills and give it to anyone aged 10 or above and see how many they can do.

Another major problem with just learning Maths procedures by rote is that it is often difficult to determine which procedure to use if the problem is presented as a word problem – there is no point being able to remember how to add fractions if you can’t work out that you need to add fractions to solve a particular problem. This difficulty becomes very apparent from about Year/Grade 10 so it is not surprising that this is the time that many people drop Maths even though they may have been getting good grades in earlier years.

DANGER! Poor Maths Skills Severely Limit Your Child’s Career Choice

Poor Maths skills in Senior High School make it very difficult to learn Science subjects like Physics and Chemistry, so courses at University in Medicine, Science or Engineering are not an option for the student. Fixing the Maths skills at Senior High School level is much more difficult that fixing them in Primary or Junior High School, so proactive parents should have the learning approach of their children assessed so any weaknesses can be fixed as soon as possible.

Even if your child does not want to do Medicine, Science and Engineering courses, most other University and College courses contain a significant component of Maths! And the Maths part of the course is usually compulsory so failure in the Maths means failure in getting the qualification. Take Nursing for example, well over half the people who enroll in Nursing fail because they can’t pass their drug calculation test. The same thing happens in Psychology where students must learn very sophisticated Statistics and Research Methods. In fact, most University courses require students to understand and use complex Statistical skills.

‘I Was No Good at Maths Either’

It is common for parents to have low expectations for their child in Maths if they did not do well in Maths themselves. Such attitudes often become a self-fulfilling prophecy because they affect the child’s attitude to Maths and destroys his/her confidence.

Poor Mathematical ability is NOT hereditary – you cannot pass it on to your child by your genes!

Maths is the Easiest Subject to Learn – Provided Your Child Learns it the Right Way

There is a surprisingly small amount of content to learn in Mathematics so if it is learned using language and understanding so the child gets good long-term memory, Maths usually becomes the easiest and most enjoyable subject for the child.

When your child is able to learn and remember Maths skills the first time, he/she will not have to keep learning them over and over again, like most of the other students.

Maths Can Be Fun

One of the most enjoyable ways to practise and maintain Maths skills is to play Maths Games. We have games that teach and revise many of the concepts needed in Primary and High School.

We also provide our students with many practical activities which provide them with a much more concrete understanding of Maths concepts, and so make the concepts easier to understand and remember.

To find out more about Our Mathematics Programs click here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

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In technologically advanced nations like Australia, UK and USA you would expect Mathematics education to be highly developed. You would also expect the vast majority of students would leave school with reasonable levels of Mathematics achievement.

Not so!

In 2008, a major study by the US Government’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel considered the US results in Mathematics Achievement showed that their Mathematics education system ‘is broken and must be fixed’.

The US National Mathematics Advisory Panel considers mathematics education needs a major overhaul – Australian student performance in Mathematics is below that of the USA.

This is what their report had to say in more detail:

This Panel, diverse in experience, expertise, and philosophy, agrees broadly that the delivery system in mathematics education—the system that translates mathematical knowledge into value and ability for the next generation—is broken and must be fixed. This is not a conclusion about any single element of the system. It is about how the many parts do not now work together to achieve a result worthy of this country’s values and ambitions. (Principal Messages, page xiii)

What This Means for Your Child

If your child has only average Maths skills then he/she will NOT do formal Mathematics in Year 12 – in Australia, less than one third of Year 12 students study Intermediate or Advanced Mathematics subjects.

In my experience, most high schools start the process of segregating the students who will do higher Maths in Year 12 from as early as Years 8 or 9 where students are moved into classes which ‘do the same curriculum but are given more help’. Yeah, right! These students almost never get back into the normal stream (unless they work with us at High Performance Learning).

Then comes the crunch at the end of Year 10 when many children are not allowed to choose to study Advanced Maths in Year 11 based on the marks in the end of year exam, even though they have been getting A’s and B’s in Maths up until that time, and you as a parent have been given no previous warning that there was a problem. (If this happens to you, contact us immediately so we can fix the problem straight away.)

The biggest crunch of all comes after the half-yearly exams in Year 11. It is not unusual for more than half the students in Advanced and Intermediate Level Maths classes to get ‘weeded out’ at this stage. (We can still help your child at this stage – but you are sure making our job even more difficult by not having acted sooner.)

More students drop out of Advanced and Intermediate Level Maths at the end of Year 11, and of course, not all those who keep going until the end of Year 12 get high enough marks to get into the course of their choice.

The Good News: The US National Mathematics Advisory Panel Recommendations

The US National Mathematics Advisory Panel didn’t offer a solution to the problem of a broken system but they did highlight the key indicators of future success in Mathematics.

They recommend:

Primary School students should be proficient in fractions, and before that with whole numbers, geometry and measurement:

‘A major goal for K–8 mathematics education should be proficiency with fractions (including decimals, percent, and negative fractions), for such proficiency is foundational for algebra and, at the present time, seems to be severely underdeveloped. Proficiency with whole numbers is a necessary precursor for the study of fractions, as are aspects of measurement and geometry. These three areas—whole numbers, fractions, and particular aspects of geometry and measurement—are the Critical Foundations of Algebra.’ (Curricular Content, point 4, page xvii)

Junior High School Students should be proficient in Algebra:

‘All school districts should ensure that all prepared students have access to an authentic algebra course—and should prepare more students than at present to enroll in such a course by Grade 8.’ (Curricular Content, point 6, page xviii)

‘To prepare students for Algebra, the curriculum must simultaneously develop conceptual understanding, computational fluency, and problem solving skills. Debates regarding the relative importance of these aspects of mathematical knowledge are misguided. These capabilities are mutually supportive, each facilitating learning of the others. Teachers should emphasize these interrelations; taken together, conceptual understanding of mathematical operations, fluent execution of procedures, and fast access to number combinations jointly support effective and efficient problem solving.’ (Learning Processes, point 10, page xix)

When to Act if Your Child Is Struggling with Maths

NOW!

If you can’t help your child yourself then you need outside help:

1. Do NOT blame your child for being lazy and berate him/her to work harder – your child does not know what to do.
2. Do NOT rely on the school – if they let the problem develop in the first place they are unlikely to be able to fix it once it has become serious.
3. Do NOT get a tutor who just goes over the school work or who gets your child to do a lot of repetitious work – there is no point repeating the mistakes that were already made in the teaching of Maths at the school.
4. YOU NEED to find someone who will diagnose the cause of the problem by assessing your child’s thinking, learning, literacy and maths skills. And you need to be sure they have a detailed program which is different from what happened at school to fix the underlying causes of your child’s Maths problems. Not surprisingly, this is what we do at High Performance Learning, and we can work with your child anywhere in the world. You can contact us here.
5. DO NOT GIVE UP ON YOUR CHILD. Maths is the easiest subject at school if your child has been taught to do it in the correct way.

To find out more about Our Mathematics Programs click here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

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Why is it that technologically advanced countries like Australia, UK and the USA need to import so many highly skilled migrants when many of the people already living in those countries do not have a job?

The answer is simple, the standards of Maths and Science in the schools are so low that not enough of the children in advanced countries have the skills needed to pursue technological careers.

The 2007 TIMSS International Study of Achievement in School Mathematics found that Australian students at Year 8 level (average score 496) are below average (average of all countries was 500) in a group of 49 countries. Australia was marginally behind the United States (av. 508), which was behind the United Kingdom (av. 513), and these three countries and many others were way behind the leaders: Chinese Taipei (av. 598), South Korea (av. 597), Singapore (av. 593), Hong Kong (av. 572), and Japan (av. 570).

Similar results were obtained for Mathematics achievement in Year 4. Results for Science achievement in Australia were similarly disappointing.

The US Government’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel considers mathematics education needs a major overhaul (Australian student performance in Mathematics is below that of the USA)

In 2008, a major study by the US National Mathematics Advisory Panel considered the US results showed that their Mathematics education system ‘is broken and must be fixed’. This is what their report had to say in detail:

This Panel, diverse in experience, expertise, and philosophy, agrees broadly that the delivery system in mathematics education—the system that translates mathematical knowledge into value and ability for the next generation—is broken and must be fixed. This is not a conclusion about any single element of the system. It is about how the many parts do not now work together to achieve a result worthy of this country’s values and ambitions. (Principal Messages, page xiii)

Teaching Methods Are to Blame for Poor Results

Educators have been aware of the problems with Mathematics Education for many decades and so have tried a series of different approaches in the schools:

1. New Maths (with a focus on understanding through set theory),
2. Back-to-Basics (a return to rote learning of number facts),
3. Problem Solving (with an emphasis on application and reasoning),
4. Constructivism (where the teacher does less teaching and encourages the students to work the Maths facts out for themselves).

I hear you asking: ‘What is the result of all these experiments?’

The answer is: There has been a steady decline in the number of students studying advanced Maths at Year 12 level, year after year.

High Performance In Mathematics

Year after year, all the students who get Maths tutoring here at High Performance Learning get outstanding results because our curriculum teaches HOW TO LEARN MATHS, as well as teaching the content.

Our programs incorporate the best parts of the four approaches to teaching Maths detailed above, PLUS we teach our students:

• The psychology of thinking and learning (including Game Theory),
• The use of concrete materials to develop abstract concepts,
• A heavy emphasis on learning the language of Mathematics,
• The use of in-depth reading, comprehension and understanding skills to support long-term memory,
• Careful setting out strategies,
• The importance of mastering each level of Mathematics before moving on to the next one.

If you look through your child’s Maths textbook you will see little or no mention of these things. If your child’s Maths teacher is using these techniques effectively then all the children in the class would be getting high marks.

To find out how you can access our Maths Programs and tutoring contact us by email here or phone us in Australia on (08) 8370 0110.

To find out more about Our Mathematics Programs click here.

By Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

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