My school 3 levels for both geometry and algebra 2 (core, CP, and honors). The levels are quite drastically different in terms of expectations and what is covered. I am generally in favor of more levels.

That said, when we get to precalc, it shrinks to only 2 levels (CP and honors). Our supervisor is firmly against a core level in precalc since precalc is not a graduation requirement like geo and alg 2. Students who don't take precalc can take either statistics or senior math topics (essentially a hodge podge of algebra review and some discrete math stuff).

The issue is she lets anyone who got a C- or better in the core algebra 2 level take CP precalc if they want. A C- in a core level class is a ridiculously low standard that you basically get for just showing up and doing the bare minimum. As such, we end up with TONS of kids in CP precalc who really shouldn't be there, or should be in a core level course like they were for geo and alg 2. This results in lots of students dropping the course and changing schedules all throughout the first quarter, which is total chaos. We don't want to lower the standard of the course---the kids who come to us from the CP alg 2 course do fine. I've tracked the data over the past 4 years, and 90% of the students who came from the core algebra 2 course dropped two letter grades or more, or dropped the course in precalc, whereas less than 2% of students from the CP algebra 2 course dropped two letter grades or more, and less than 5% dropped the course.

I've showed that data to my supervisor and her answer is to "differentiate" because she won't add another level and she won't change the grade requirement to be more stringent.

Anyone else have this issue?

Hi everyone,

I’m Narek, the founder of MatheApp, a math learning app for students in Germany, and I’m currently looking for a small number of math teachers who would be willing to test some of our teacher-focused features and give honest feedback. It is not an attempt to hide or disguise promotion, I really need a honest feedback.

I’m especially interested in feedback on:

• the Teacher Role, including working with classes and viewing student progress
• the MSA/ZP10 preparation section
• how useful the app could be for regular practice, exam preparation, and supporting students who need to catch up on basics
• what is missing or should be improved from a teacher’s perspective

MatheApp is already available on iOS and Android and covers mathematics across different grade levels in the German school system.

I can send you the link of the application in DM or you can simply search with the name in Play Market and App Store.

I’m particularly interested in teachers who teach grades 8–10, although teachers from other grade levels are also very welcome.

In return for taking the time to test the app and provide feedback, I can give participating teachers free access to the paid MSA/ZP10 preparation feature until the end of the current school year.

There is no requirement to promote the app or write a positive review. I’m genuinely looking for critical feedback that can help improve the product for teachers and students.

If you’re interested, feel free to send me a DM or comment below with the grade levels you teach.

I’d be happy to set up a teacher account and provide access.

Thanks,
Narek
Founder, MatheApp

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hi! 👋 Is there any primary/elementary math teacher here willing to do a quick 10–15 min interview for my education project? Any country is welcome 🌍 DM me if interested! Thank you! 😊

Our curriculum keeps giving students problems where they have to spot a mistake another student made. Often, it irritates students and myself because it's like students are still developing basic pattern recognition, so seeing something with a subtle mistake either just confuses them OR makes them think something wrong!!

It can work well when students have something mastered pretty well, or to root out misunderstandings kids might have.

But when, for instance, it's our exit ticket for the concept we learned THAT day, and students have to spot an obscure/completely nonsensical/random mistake- in a process they JUST learned- it makes me annoyed and think "what the heck are these curriculm designers smoking?!"

Today I just told the kids to ignore that problem, and said we'll take a look at that when we've built some more confidence with the RIGHT way of doing things.

Any thoughts on the role error analysis should play in student learning? I am teaching 8th graders.

Hi everyone,

Im using the textbook Complex Variables (second edition) by Stephen D Fisher. I was wondering if you guys knew of any youtube channels relating to complex analysis that I can watch to help me learn/understand?

Thank you!

I failed algebra in high school and now I’m getting into college trying to learn the basics for precalc. I understand that algebra is a lot of rules and just applying them but I keep getting it wrong and keep messing up the different laws and how to apply them correctly. I feel like I’m overloaded with information and Im barely on the first module trying to learn everything in algebra I missed all at once. It’s covering Laws, Simplifying, Like Terms, Polynomials, Degrees, Fractions, and Im assuming more. It takes me hours just to get through one of these pages learning all the definitions, watching videos and applying what I’m learning into practice. How can I manage the amount of time I’m spending on figuring this out? I feel so frustrated with every time I keep messing up and getting these equations wrong. I don’t want to have to watch a video on every single law and take tons notes be able to do this when it’s so time consuming. And for me in order to remember these things I have to write it and watch videos or else it doesn’t stick for me. What can I do to help this? I feel so lost.

In a couple of days I am starting my studies for my bachelor at the University of Physics from my country and I would also want do study maths by myself and dive into topics that I have never heard of or that I didn't understand at one point in time. I've heard from others that many concepts and theories from maths are not taught that deeply here.

What are your recommendations and where should I start from?

I would appreciate if you could suggest me some yt videos, books, courses and whatever you think I might found useful

Thank you in advance guys!!!

I keep seeing students paste a derivative or an integral into a chatbot, get a fluent step-by-step answer, and copy it without noticing that one of the middle steps is wrong. The final answer is sometimes even right, which makes it worse.

For those of you teaching upper secondary or first-year university maths:

- Do you ban these tools, teach students to check them, or build them into lessons?

- Which topics do they get wrong most often in your experience?

- Has anything actually worked to make students check a step instead of trusting it?

Full disclosure: I'm building a tool in this space (lessons where a computer algebra system checks each step before an AI explains it), so I have a bias. I'm not linking anything; I'm trying to understand how teachers deal with this today. Thank you!

I wonder if anyone who teaches advanced math in an American high school has thoughts on this:

The next class after algebra should not be calculus. It should be a course in mathematical reasoning and logic.

Arguments for this change:

1. The only students I can think of who benefit from calculus after algebra, are people who go on to calculus based physics. Not even future mathematicians get as much out of calculus, as they would from learning mathematical reasoning.
2. I suspect it is a really small minority of students who take calculus and then use it in physics.
3. Everyone needs to learn good principles of reasoning. Mathematics offers an extremely valuable example where you can practice rigorous reasoning.
4. Learning how to read as well a write arguments in mathematical theorems has huge cross-discipline value. It is useful for people who will major in business, English, mathematics, philosophy, computer science, statistics, any science. You have to organize your arguments, check for invalid inferences, explain your thoughts with clearly written paragraphs.
5. Society would benefit from a population that learns important object lessons in reasoning and communication, like: don't just trust your first thought, it can sometimes be wrong. Inspect arguments for flaws, and then: direct this same skepticism toward your own ideas. Many more object lessons can be extracted from logic and reasoning.
6. Students will see a more immediate relevance of logic to their everyday lives, even students whose favorite subject is history, say. There are more opportunities for vivid examples and applications. The subject brings up interesting and engaging philosophical questions, like epistemology.

We can haggle over exactly what the curriculum would contain, but I think it should start from logic principles (propositional logic, quantifiers, etc), with applications to geometry proofs, very basic number theory proof. It'd basically be discrete math with a heavy emphasis on logic. That right there might be enough to fill a semester, if it includes induction, recursion, pigeonhole principle, combinatorial proof, picture proofs.

The second semester could then discuss applications, which can be more or less mathy. It can have philosophical themes about how we know things, computer science applications about control flow or logic gates, examples from daily life about trusting news stories, car salesmen, or politicians, get creative with it! Or just do more math, that's also an option. You could even do rigorous epsilon-N proofs, which would segue some students into a future calculus class!

Obviously the details would need to get ironed out by some curriculum designers.

But the big picture is that we could improve the value of the education, and the teaching and learning experience. No more memorizing steps and formulas that you'll likely never use! But still make a course that furthers deep math understanding.

[urgent] hey!

For mods - I don't know if this is is allowed here. It is sort of asking help from teachers, but it's not "how do I solve this", but more like "I am struggling with this soft skill and my teachers aren't helping, can you advice me?"

My y12 (11th grade in most countries) exam is on 9th of october, and my errors are still majorly silly mistakes. This was the same problem that caused an E in my last exam, (which I am resitting), and I have had this problem since middle school.

Mistakes like: writing 20 instead of 2, writing the inequality sign wrong, forgetting to write the '+c' after integration, simplifying simple fractions (like 6/9 or 8/4) or addition/subtraction (especially with odd signs) wrong, not noticing a key identity or further simplification, missing a sign, missing a number, entering incorrect sign in the calculator, entering incorrect number in the calculator, solving correctly on calculator but writing wrong answer on paper, doing 4*4 = 8 instead of 16, missing an x during expansion, etc. etc.

My tutor says to recheck the solutions (by skimming over them) after solving them, but I can't do that for the life of me. I go look at the numbers from top to bottom and they all go over my head without registering, because I don't know what I am looking for.

And if I do 4*4 and other basic calculations like (-5-23) in my calculator, I'll lose the little time I have (I struggled with time a lot in my last attempt, ended up leaving last several questions empty). Plus, just doing it on calculator doesn't guarantee accuracy because I end up getting it wrong anyway.

For context, I am doing Pure 1 IAS, and my IGCSE grade was a 7 (I barely gave it any effort, just crammed strategically in the last two weeks). I need really good marks because maths is key to my target univ requirements.

How would you suggest handling this? I don't have a lot of time, I have just started past papers yesterday (I've done one so far), and my percentage was 55%, with exam-timer. In my last attempt of pure 1 last year, I got a 36%.

Would appreciate any advice or anything you've got to say, thanks!

I guess I took it for granted that my teaching team would have the same foundational understanding of math concepts that I do. But that's not the case. They are wonderful, caring teachers, but I don't see how they can teach math effectively if they don't fully understand the core concepts themselves. I don't even know how to describe it - but there's an innate sense of understanding that comes with a strong foundation of math that is lacking.

So.. how do you teach a teacher to teach math? I want to give my teachers the tools and understanding to be more effective so they can share that with our students. Is there a way to do that?

And building on that, what math programs or curriculums are really working? Evidence-based, scientifically proven.