Al parecer los exámenes PISA este año los hicieron más rigurosos. Ya yo habia hablado en mi blog sobre lo estupidos que son los PISA. Se acaba de derrumbar un gran altar, los expertos en educacion se van a rascar y rascar la cabeza y seguir hablando disparates sobre disparates. elgastoeducativodominicano.wordpress/2012/02/09/414/ businessinsider/why-finland-fell-in-the-pisa-rankings-2013-12 -It’s also worth noting that Finland’s high PISA rankings had caused some controversy amongst Finnish educators. The problem was especially acute in mathematics, where many educators disagreed with the method by which PISA ranked students (PISA focuses on everyday knowledge, rather than curriculum-based knowledge). For example, in 2005, more than 200 Finnish academics issued a warning about complacency as a result of the PISA success. Business Insider recently emailed with two Finnish education experts — Markku Halmetoja, chief editor in chief of in mathematics magazine Solmu, and Matti Lehtinen, Finnish team leader in IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) — who offered this explanation for Finland’s mathematics problem. Following a political decision made in 1985, there is only one math pro- gram in the compulsory phase of education, in the first nine school years (age 7 to 15). We consider this quite natural in the primary level: everybody has to acquire the basic arithmetic skills. But the present situation means that almost all formal algebra and geometry has disappeared from the curriculum as too difficult for a major part of the student population. A consequence of this is that upper high school math has to start almost from scratch, and there is really a long way to go if one hopes to reach a level sufficient to university studies in any subject involving mathematics. One indicator of the low level from which the part of student population to which mathematics is or would be important is the consistently low results obtained by Finland in high school level international competitions like the International Mathematical Olympiad. This aspect is usually ignored by supporters of Finland’s education reforms. Gabriel Heller Sahlgren, a Swedish academic writing for the Spectator, points out that the “Finland fan club” rarely talks about another survey called TIMSS that focuses more on curriculum-based knowledge. Interestingly, the biggest drop in Finland’s results came this year in math (the focus of the PISA exams for the first time in ten years), and Finland ranked just 12th in math. Finland’s educators themselves are not really surprised by the rankings, Kai-Ari Lundell, an elementary school teacher who recently became “teacher of the year” in Finland, explains, but they are disappointed. “We teach mathematics only four times a week,” Lundell adds. “It’s not a lot, especially when we compare how much they teach maths in some Asian countries.” Of course, everything is relative, and Finland still ranked highly in reading and science, where it was the top European nation. But the domination of PISA rankings by Asian countries looks complete, with countries from the region holding all the top seven spaces in math, the top five in reading, and the top four in science. Ultimately, this success might come down to something simple and harder to imitate — hard work. “Some teachers think that our life in Finland is so easy, our pupils have forgotten how to work,” Lundell says. “You won’t learn mathematics if you don’t work enough.”-
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 22:46:03 +0000
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