on Tuesday morning, it was preached with joy each parish, or through a digital variation of the same: the Norwegian femteklassinger is excellent in math! The surveys of the international TIMSS survey had been published, and it showed that podene was the best to work in all the Nordic countries, and is among the best in Europe.
But in addition to this indisputably good news, there were others who could give skolemyndighetene reason to take a long, steady look at themselves in the mirror. When the Norwegian students when the middle school, is matematikkprestasjonene only on the medium level compared with other countries in Europe. They are particularly weak in algebra, a part of the subject that is abstract and challenging to teach, but also essential that verktøysfag both within mathematics and in other science subjects. This creates further ripple effects: In high school are the students better in mathematics than before, but weaker in physics, and in both subjects, the results are markedly worse than in the nineties. In Norway, it is also a far smaller proportion of students who choose to immerse themselves in mathematics and physics compared with, for example, Sweden, France and the united STATES.
In ane’s seed to some worrying moves in higher education. Engineering students will drop out of the study because they do not have the basic algebrakunnskaper. Prospective nurses fail in droves in medikamentregning where they need to be able to figure out how strong the medisindoser patients their should have. Norwegian mattelærere are less specialists on the field than their colleagues in other countries, which in turn have a negative effect back on the process. A clear finding of the report is the fact that the teacher’s professional competence has great significance for the students to do well in these subjects, to the extent that it can help to smooth out the professional differences that are created by social background, parents ‘ education and the extent of the bookshelves in the childhood home.
in other words is the startling a few students who are working to get a type of expertise that everyone knows it will be in high demand in the years ahead, to solve challenges in medicine, information technology and energiproblematikk, to name a few. It is in everyone’s interest that the pupils in the Norwegian school are both happier and better in the sciences.
This again, nothing new. For many years it has been placed into various measures to get this to happen. In one of the reports that are based on the TIMSS-study, “One step forward and one back”, pointing out the authors that a sober evaluation of what would create excitement and mastery, is in its place. Among other points that it in Norwegian curricula emphasis on connecting the mathematics to the practical, tangible everyday life, to strengthen the feeling that this is a useful lesson — but that this can go beyond the playful and intellectually stimulating by cleaner forms of mathematics, and to kill interest to students with natural abilities in this direction, which kvikkes up of such challenges. What seems inclusive to some, can decrease the motivation of others. This is just one of the apparent paradoxes skolemyndighetene face.
another is that the subjects physics and mathematics, which are closely connected, have been disconnected from each other — through that the old gymnaslinjene was revoked and the Reform 94 was matematikkpensum in the direction of the more practical. Again, there is grip to make it easier for students, who may end up by making it more difficult, since it becomes harder for them to get insights in how the processes and methods in different disciplines shed light on each other.
It is also worth to ask about not just all the surveys and samples to identify such challenges, it also creates an impatience in the system. There has been aroused an expectation among parents, skolepolitikere and society at large that the schools should continue to report back and confirm that they are on the ball. In a subject like math, that require maturation, discipline and quantity, it can make the job more difficult ever to have society eyes in the back of the neck.
Mathematics is distinctive and difficult for many. To be good, require the ability to keep abstract conditions firmly in mind, without that they have no immediate roots in what the students experience in the daily satellite — perhaps especially in algebra, where they must learn to think on something that is not a number, but that may be it. But in any case, it is now clear that the Norwegian elleveåringer has all the prerequisites to get this to work. So, it is up to the teachers and those who place the conditions for them to make this field into a landscape they would like to go deeper into and explore further.
