My personal complaints about the MAA/B/C syllabi include:

1) The Modelling and Problem Solving standards descriptors in MAB and MAC don’t actually say that kids have to “solve” problems. For example, the top left paragraph on p35 of the MAB syllabus 2008 says “use of problem-solving strategies to interpret, clarify and analyse problems to develop responses …” An officer at QSA told me when I rang him about it that yes, the kids are expected to actually solve the problem. Well, that needs to be explicitly stated there. It’s rubbish to waffle on as the syllabus does, skirting around the issue. Strangely, MAA asks that students be able to “Model and solve problems” (p. 36).

2) There’s far too much gobble-de-gook in the descriptors for the criteria. They want us to rule the page in so many directions, getting balances of every darn thing. I know that if a school has inexperienced teachers they might simply ask a small number of question types over and over, so that the kids don’t get experience in the full range of concepts and skills. But surely the “fix” is for QSA to simply check our tests etc and advise if we aren’t getting good enough ranges and balances of question types. Some of the descriptors are pie-in-the-sky stuff that we can do without- “Identification of assumptions and their associated effects, parameters, and or variables”, “The strengths and limitations of models, both given and developed”. These things are part of Maths, yes, but are they appropriate at a school level where kids are only beginning to embark on a journey into a subject? So unless we manage to include some questions examining these finer points, Panels can’t approve top marks (pardon – ratings).

3) The worst aspect from my viewpoint though, is that we are spending much more time thinking about QSA’s onerous assessment demands, than we are on teaching and learning. Several of our local mathematics teachers’ association’s evening meetings have been devoted entirely to discussing the new assessment regime. It’s the same with in-school “Faculty” meetings. We ask, “If we do this, will it satisfy QSA’s expectations?” Instead of spending our time that way, we should be sharing teaching ideas. Young teachers in particular need plenty of that sort of mentoring from older ones, but at the moment we’re putting lots of out-of-hours meetings time into arguing about interpretations of the scriptures in the syllabuses.

4) I know that most University Maths students are assessed in a simple marks system. It seems crazy to me that we put our kids through this cumbersome system of assessment, and then next year at Uni. they’re assessed using marks. The lecturers who set their tests would have to make sure they ask a balanced range of questions, and then after that they simply award marks, a skill which school Maths teachers are very good at, in general.

5) We were assured by QSA when these 2008 syllabuses were released that they were “minor revisions” of the 2001 syllabuses.  I cannot understand therefore, why many work programmes have still not been approved despite being submitted as long as 15 months ago!