F
Facts: 7
786,000 th
he number o
of people on adult and com
mmunity nd leearning coursses in Englan
in
n 2005/06 6
60 % of people disaagree that most people don’t “m
understand w
what vocation
nal qualificationss are” 5
5 million Vo
ocational ccourses: o
opportunitties for en
nhancing sstudents’ understandiing of matths? Num
meracy is a rrequirement for anyone entering thee workplace o
or seeking to aadvance theiir career. Butt many strugggle to achievve even basic maths quaalifications. W
Would capitaalising on stu
udents’ interest in vocational sub
bjects such ass agricultural mechanics,, horticulturee and autom
motive technology help
p? An American study that set out to develop and test a model dessigned to imp
prove studen
nts’ maths skkills through vocational courses found
d that it helped them to
o learn mathe
ematical con
ncepts which
h they had be
een unable maths classro
oom. And maaking time to
o focus on to ggrasp in the ttraditional m
matths didn’t lim
mit the stude
ents’ acquisittion of techn
nical skills and kno
owledge. Students impro
oved their un
nderstandingg of maths to
o the extent that they achievved higher o
on standardissed maths teests. How waas this hieved? ach
Voccational subject tutors w
worked with ttheir maths ttutor colleaggues to identify maths cconcepts inh
herent in their curricula aand devise le
esson plans. Thee vocational subject tutors helped theeir students to make linkks between matthematical cconcepts thro
ough a seriess of seven caarefully plann
ned steps that began with
h an introducction to solviing a real, relevant problem; oceeded with
h students prracticing with
h several sim
milar example
es and pro
end
ded with stud
dents applying the conceept they had learned to aa more absstract problem. 4
4 times th
he number o
of students in
n fu
urther educaation in 2004/05. Neaarly three tim
mes as many as in 1970/71 th
he number o
of female FE sttudents in 20
004/05 co
ompared witth 1970/71 Forr example, ho
ow to ensure
e that a build
ding had 90O (square) corrners invo
olved introducing the maathematical formula and
d terminologyy of the Pythagorean theorem. Haviing been wallked through
h the problem
m, the dents were aasked to solvve other construction pro
oblems usingg the same stud
theeorem. 1
20% of people agreed that “only people who can’t do academic qualifications should do vocational ones 11% the proportion of 16 year olds in full‐time education in sixth from colleges in 2005 Source: Social Trends 37 But the programme was more than just the seven teaching elements. The essential feature of the model was the teamwork between the vocational subject tutors and their maths tutor partners to identify the maths concepts embedded in the vocational subjects and develop the lessons together. How could joint curriculum planning help you to make more effective use of the distinct, specialist knowledge of maths and vocational tutors? Stone, J., Alfeld, C., Pearson, D., Lewis, M., & Jenson, S. (2005) Building academic skills in context: testing the value of enhanced maths learning in CTE: www.nccte.org/publications/infosynthesis/r%26dreport/MathLearningPilo
tStudy.pdf 2