MissKoh.com (The url is actually www.MissKoh.info) is a website supported by Singapore’s Straits Times. If you click on the academic year, then the grade level you are interested in, you will be brought to a page of mid-year and final semestral papers as well as a few continual assessment papers, all from top schools in Singapore. For example; select 2008 and Primary 6 and you are offered test papers for English, Chinese, Maths or Science from 5 schools. (You need to register for some of the schools)
Go back to the 2007 Academic year and find tests through the second year of Junior College. All assessments are scans from actual school papers, so expect some rough looking pdfs.
My 8th grader and I had a great time working our way through some challenging word problems on a test. For your mathematical enjoyment, here’s one from the Nanyang Primary School 2007 Preliminary Examination:
A mixture, weighing 100 kg is made up of 2 chemicals A and B in the ratio of 7:3. When some volume of Chemical A evaporates, the content of Chemical A is reduced to 60% of the new mixture. What is the mass of the mixture now?
MissKoh.com advertises itself as “Your Online Test Center” From the About Us page:
Misskoh.com is set up to create awareness for “The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund” to help students from low income families who cannot even afford a proper meal during recess…
Most of the these students do not have extra revision materials to revise, so we hope you can help by sharing your printouts with them if you know of any such friends in school.
(Image courtesy of Indexed.)
I’ll be presenting “How to Use Strategies from Singapore Math to Strengthen your Math Instruction” in Cincinnati on May 13, Atlanta on May 14 and in New Jersey on May 20 & 21, 2009. You can read more about these 1 day seminars and register through the Institute for Educational Development.
All seminars will be “buzzword” free!
These are the only public sessions I’ll be doing until the 2009 – 2010 school year.
Thinking about a field trip to see the world’s top-scoring math in action? There are just a few spots left for this July’s Singapore Math Summer Program.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual Meeting and Exposition (NCTM) has ended and I wanted to share a few quick items regarding Singapore Math.
First off, Houghton Mifflin’s division Great Source premiered their new Singapore math series. Called Math in Focus, the textbooks are hardbound (and are heavy!) and the Teacher’s Editions appear quite comprehensive. This series looks like an American textbook series. I chatted with Patsy Kanter, one of the authors, as well as Shar Hammet, the head of the mathematics division for Houghton Mifflin, and they feel that they’ve kept the true essence of the curriculum while adding value to a classroom teacher. I hope to procure a grade level to review and share. At each grade level, the series includes:
You can download a sample lesson from the first grade.
Next:
The Singapore Model Method for Learning Mathematics was available from the Marshall Cavendish booth and will be available next month from Singaporemath.com. Written by the Ministry of Education, this book ( or monograph, as they refer to the publication) is designed to serve as a resource book on the Model Method:
The main purpose is to make explicit how the Model Method is used to develop students’ understanding of fundamental mathematics concepts and proficiency in solving basic mathematics word problems.
Although I’ve just begun reading the book, it appears to be a comprehensive overview of the Model Method and provides examples for both basic and quite challenging word problems.
The table of contents (click to enlarge):
And a sample page 77 from Appendix A:
Finally, there were 4 presentations on Singapore Math at the NCTM:
ALL four Singapore Math sessions were oversubscribed, with disappointed attendees listening outside at the door. Dr. Yeap’s session saw people lining up 40 minutes beforehand to get a seat!
The Singapore Math series: Primary Mathematics Challenging Word Problem from EPB Pan Pacific is being discontinued. Get your copies while you still can! According to the publisher, these books are:
“Highly recommended for capable students as a source of interesting review and challenging word problems”
If you’ve ever used the books, you know what a loss this will be to future users. While the books may be relics compared to the current Singapore Syllabus, one can’t help wonder if the changes in the “Teach Less, Learn More” syllabus in Singapore haven’t contributed to the country’s ever so slight drop on the most recent TIMSS.
SingaporeMath.com may have most books in the series available through summer, although it sounds like Primary 3 is in short supply.
For your problem-solving enjoyment, here’s a sample from the end of the Primary 6 book – Challenging level:
Cindy had four times as many postcards as Annie. After Cindy gave 20% of her postcards to Jane and Annie gave 10% of her postcards to Jane, the number of Jane’s postcards increased by 75%. If Jane had 252 postcards in the end, how many postcards did Cindy have at first?
Have fun!
An interesting word problem was recently posted at the SingaporeMath Yahoo group. The original poster wrote for help solving it without algebra and mentioned that it was from the Primary 4 books. This seems a little advanced compared to the problems in the text and workbooks. I believe the problem could be from the Challenging Word problems series, which provides answers only.
There are 285 teachers and students in the hall. 5/6 of the students and 1/3 of the teachers went out of the hall. There is an equal number of students and teachers left in the hall. How many teachers were there in the hall at first?
If 5/6 of the students and 1/3 of the teachers went out, there would be 1/6 of the students and 2/3 of the teachers left in the hall.
Begin with the end result:
2/3 of the amount of teachers is equal to 1/6 of the amount of students. For every unit of students, there are 2 units of teachers.
Then let’s work back to how many there were at first:
There are 285 people divided into 15 units.
285 ÷ 15 = 19 people per unit.
There were 3 units of 19, or 57 teachers in the hall at first.
Then, to check out work, let’s find out how many students there were at first.
12 units x 19 people in each = 128 students
128 students + 57 teachers = 285 teachers and students were in the hall at first.
The Christian Science Monitor is running a series entitled “What Makes a Teacher Good?” that includes articles on teacher pay, teacher training, and lessons from international schools. An example of a strong international education system is highlighted in the article: Why Singapore is another model for teaching excellence that discusses the way Singapore ensures that their teachers are truly highly qualified. Three U.S. visitors to Singapore were interviewed. Steven Paine, the superintendent of West Virginia’s schools:
asked a Singapore official about the basis of their math curriculum, she cited a standards framework put out by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics – in the United States. West Virginia’s curriculum takes guidance from the same source, Mr. Paine says. “So the question remains, why is it that they lead the world in student achievement? I think it’s because of their teacher quality,” he says.
While teacher quality is a part of the success that Singapore has experienced, curriculum is another large part. The Singapore official may have cited the NCTM standards, however it’s clear that Singapore’s Ministry of Education has created a more refined framework document. The NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics runs 402 pages for elementary and secondary while Singapore’s Ministry of Education can cover both primary and secondary in a concise, content-rich 82 pages.
From the NCTM online access for Principles and Standards:
From the MOE primary syllabus (Primary 1 is 1st grade):
As a teacher, which set of 1st grade standards would you prefer to follow?
A break from Singapore math for…Singapore history:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvvhY6DtfZs]This 1938 documentary comes from The Travel Film Archive (via IZ Reloaded). The video…
…gives us a tour of the British colony of Singapore in 1938. It was filmed by Andre de la Varre who in the early 1930’s, went out on his own as “The Screen Traveler” and made theatrical shorts for independent release as well as for many of the major Hollywood Studios.
I originally found the video from a tweet by mySingapore which bills itself as “your one stop community site for everything Singapore.” If you are interested in developing a Professional Learning Network, Twitter is a great place to start – you never know what you’ll learn.
Enjoy!
You can follow me: Cassyt.
Sponsored by the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the theme for April’s Math Awareness Month is Mathematics and Climate. From the press release:
One of the most important challenges of our time is modeling global climate. Some of the fundamental questions researchers are currently addressing are:
- How long will the summer Arctic sea ice pack survive?
- Are hurricanes and other severe weather events getting stronger?
- How much will sea level rise as ice sheets melt?
- How do human activities affect climate change?
- How is global climate monitored?
You can write to the AMS for a free copy of the poster below or download it direct from their site. Looking for inspiration for the classroom? The site also has a list of activities and events happening around the country as well as a place for you to submit your own.
Passionate about Elementary Math + Author! + Teacher Trainer and Coach + Treasure Hunter + Learner 
as well as in Canada, China, England, Germany, Ghana, Guam, Japan, Mexico, and The Republic of Palau.
