Revisiting maths…

[ChevronB19]

My daughter has started secondary, and she’s asking for help with maths.

I use fairly basic maths daily, but I’ve lost the knowledge I had in a whole load of areas, and I’m looking for a good online resource that can give me a ‘refresher’.

I don’t need a certificate, so don’t want to pay c. £500 to do a GCSE, although if I ‘get into it’ I would be interested in doing an A level. I got a grade A O level in 1986, so ‘in theory’ I could progress to A level standard, but I always found that with maths it was more like a language and you had to have an innate understanding. In essence, I could ‘do the sums’ but was never really convinced I knew quite why they worked.

Any pointers?

[Bluesgirl]

Have a look at The GCSE Maths Tutor on YouTube. He explains all aspects of the GCSE exam papers in detail and also does an intensive topic by topic video that covers every topic in the GCSE paper in one 2.5 hour presentation.

I'm a maths tutor and find his approach very calm and clear.

[Simpo Two]

For me maths started to go wrong when the numbers became letters, then when they became Greek I was stuffed.

Let's be frank, what we use everyday is called arithmetic. Mathematics comes later.

A-level is a whole new world from O-level, but have a go and see how you do

[ChevronB19]

Bluesgirl said:

Have a look at The GCSE Maths Tutor on YouTube. He explains all aspects of the GCSE exam papers in detail and also does an intensive topic by topic video that covers every topic in the GCSE paper in one 2.5 hour presentation.

I'm a maths tutor and find his approach very calm and clear.

Thanks, I’ll check it out.

[ChevronB19]

Simpo Two said:

For me maths started to go wrong when the numbers became letters, then when they became Greek I was stuffed.

Let's be frank, what we use everyday is called arithmetic. Mathematics comes later.

A-level is a whole new world from O-level, but have a go and see how you do

Yep, I’ve no illusions here. I didn’t do A level as by the end of O level I realised it required what in essence is an ‘innate understanding’ which I simply didn’t have. I can do what I need to, but always have to break it down to first principles in order to do so, I can’t just ‘do it’. Weirdly, I’m very good at standard mental arithmetic.

[Bill]

I've found mine (1 in yr10, 2 in yr8) have only needed help early on. I think it's just getting them up to speed from primary school that they need help with.

I did do A level but found getting them to try to explain and the occasional bit of Google was enough.

[Derek Chevalier]

ChevronB19 said:

My daughter has started secondary, and she’s asking for help with maths.

I use fairly basic maths daily, but I’ve lost the knowledge I had in a whole load of areas, and I’m looking for a good online resource that can give me a ‘refresher’.

I don’t need a certificate, so don’t want to pay c. £500 to do a GCSE, although if I ‘get into it’ I would be interested in doing an A level. I got a grade A O level in 1986, so ‘in theory’ I could progress to A level standard, but I always found that with maths it was more like a language and you had to have an innate understanding. In essence, I could ‘do the sums’ but was never really convinced I knew quite why they worked.

Any pointers?

I am in a similar position. I used to enjoy (Applied) Maths and Physics, and now the children are at that level I'm tempted to join them on the journey.

[Derek Chevalier]

Bluesgirl said:

Have a look at The GCSE Maths Tutor on YouTube. He explains all aspects of the GCSE exam papers in detail and also does an intensive topic by topic video that covers every topic in the GCSE paper in one 2.5 hour presentation.

I'm a maths tutor and find his approach very calm and clear.

Thank you, I think it's this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3crqKb13I

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Simpo Two said:

A-level is a whole new world from O-level, but have a go and see how you do

Indeed. I helped both my kids to A* Maths GCSE based on my 70s O level. But they both did Maths to A level and I was totally fked. They ended up trying to teach me but I bowed out as I was just holding them back

[Fundoreen]

If only the youtube was available when I was in school. I could have secretly learnt something while by day being one of the back row disruptors lol.

[Abbott]

I recently listened to an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage on the subject of teaching maths.

I thought it was really interesting https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019ytj

Also listened to A Life Scientific about a lady who was one of the founders of MOOC an online free learning resource from key US universities.

https://www.mooc.org/courses Click on Math and see what you fancy

[Simpo Two]

Fundoreen said:

If only the youtube was available when I was in school. I could have secretly learnt something while by day being one of the back row disruptors lol.

There were libraries you know...

[Tempest_5]

Back in the 80's the Letts revision books were pretty good for explaining things to 'O' Level standard.

Another good read is Engineering Mathematics by K.A. Stroud which takes you through stuff step by step with worked examples. This starts at the slightly more advanced 'O' Level/GCSE point.

You can probably pick up decent examples on ebay etc for less than a tenner. They are worth a punt if you want to see how you get on.

I also found K.A .Stroud is a good size/weight for resistance training in a rucksack on my mountain bike.

[Kawasicki]

I had a really easy time with maths until I was about 14 and a clueless teacher tried to teach me calculus. Then I struggled.

Years later I did an engineering degree where I had a really talented maths lecturer. It went from something I didn’t understand to something that was so simple it didn’t really require much thought.

Teachers are really important!

I‘ve lost the knack now, but I can get it back if I need to.

[RizzoTheRat]

Abbott said:

I recently listened to an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage on the subject of teaching maths.
I thought it was really interesting https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019ytj

I listened to that the other day, great panel as I'm a fan of Hannah Fry, Matt Parker and David Spiegelhalter. Worth looking up Numberphile on youtube for some interesting mathsy stuff, Fry and Parker have both done stuff on there.

I really loved the point about it being a language that you need to learn. Some people see a page of maths, don't understand it and get put off and think they can't do maths, but show them a page of Japanese and they'll quite correctly realise they don't understand it because they haven't learned Japanese.

Tempest_5 said:

Another good read is Engineering Mathematics by K.A. Stroud

I'll second that, annoyingly I seem to lost my copy, but it covers a lot of stuff and it really well explained.

Edited by RizzoTheRat on Friday 7th October 12:00

[jet_noise]

Tempest_5 said:

I also found K.A .Stroud is a good size/weight for resistance training in a rucksack on my mountain bike.

Still got mine, must be 47years old! The only book I've kept from student times.
With some (slightly) more modern technical tomes:

Despite its general helpful style as I recall there are one or two places where it seems to go from the "2+2" level to "derive Maxwell's equations" height in one page!

[Kuwahara]

Kawasicki said:

I had a really easy time with maths until I was about 14 and a clueless teacher tried to teach me calculus. Then I struggled.

Years later I did an engineering degree where I had a really talented maths lecturer. It went from something I didn’t understand to something that was so simple it didn’t really require much thought.

Teachers are really important!

I‘ve lost the knack now, but I can get it back if I need to.

Absolutely spot on ,a good teacher/lecturer are in valuable if you carry these skills through life ,had a professor at college when I went back to school as such and he was brilliant at finding ways to understand issues I was struggling with initially,also sometimes the kids homework is straightforward until they tell you how they get the answer nowadays I just don’t get it,my eldest son was always struggling with numbers so got him into playing darts and it’s amazing how quick it becomes second nature….

[Sheepshanks]

Simpo Two said:

Let's be frank, what we use everyday is called arithmetic. Mathematics comes later.

I did some trigonometry the other day to work out the angle of a sloping ceiling.

However I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get my iPhone to do the inverse function - had to Google how to do it.

[Simpo Two]

Sheepshanks said:

I did some trigonometry the other day to work out the angle of a sloping ceiling.

However I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get my iPhone to do the inverse function - had to Google how to do it.

I expect that with the right sort of 'app' you could hold the phone against the ceiling and it will tell you

(Only works if you can reach the ceiling though!)

[ChevronB19]

Abbott said:

I recently listened to an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage on the subject of teaching maths.

I thought it was really interesting https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019ytj

Also listened to A Life Scientific about a lady who was one of the founders of MOOC an online free learning resource from key US universities.

https://www.mooc.org/courses Click on Math and see what you fancy

Yes, I heard that one with the MOOC lady, it was fascinating!

I still hate how Americans call Maths ‘Math’ though. Not quite as much as I hate people calling Coleslaw ‘Slaw’ though, so there is hope for me yet.

I’ve just bought this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782943838/ref...

An awful lot of the basics I use every day, but I want to rediscover things like differentiation again (I could do it, but had no idea what it was for, we were never told that), and I do remember the satisfaction of getting something ‘right’, although I was never quite sure *why* it was right…