Yes, this is a word with a long history. As the word suggests, “automagically” is (according to Wikipedia) a blend of the automatic and the magical. Dictionary.com notes that:
“This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon and probably much earlier. The word `automagic’ occurred in advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.”
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/03/09/ont-math.html?ref=rss
A new study shows a third of first-year college students in Ontario are in danger of not graduating because they flunked or barely scraped through their math course.
Researchers at Seneca College who conducted the study say that equates to about 10,000 students.
About 67 per cent of students achieved good grades — As, Bs, and Cs — slightly better than last year.
The governing Liberals are focusing on post-secondary education as a way to pull Ontario out of a major economic recession.
Monday’s throne speech promised to increase the portion of the province’s population that has a university or colleges education to 70 per cent from 62 per cent.
The government also promised to create 20,000 new post-secondary spaces this fall and increase the number of foreign students to about 54,000 from 37,000.
The Seneca study focused on the math results of 30,000 college students, but also examined the records of almost 80,000 students who enrolled in college in the fall of 2008.
Louise Brown
Education Reporter
Check out the comments on this article.
So many Ontario teens are bombing university math now that there is no Grade 13, universities are scrambling to boost students’ skills before they arrive.
Alarmed at how weak high school grads seem in basic algebra – on some campuses up to 50 per cent fail or quit first-year math – a growing number of universities sent out surprise math packages this summer to incoming students to “clear out the cobwebs” and give emergency help to those who need it.
“By and large, students are ill-prepared, and they get a rude awakening because up to 50 per cent either fail or drop math,” said math professor Peter Gibson of York University, which has launched a task force to find ways to keep freshmen from flunking math.
McMaster University also is sponsoring research into the problem.
Math profs across the province blame a four-year high school program that leaves little time for mastering basics, and a culture unwilling to push young people to drill in necessary academic skills.
Many, like McMaster professor Miroslav Lovric, also blame the i-generation’s frantic multi-tasking for dissipating their powers of concentration.
“It’s easy to blame the school system, but sometimes the students just don’t work hard enough,” said Lovric, who is overseeing the study into why 40 to 50 per cent of post-secondary students fail or drop first-year math.
Lovric’s summer package of math problems for incoming students has become so popular across Ontario that he will publish it in book format in January.
“We live in a world with too many distractions. Math takes focus.”
This may be the first generation of university students raised on the Internet, said Lovric, “so they’ve been multitasking and surfing the Web since they were 4.
“But now I see them doing their math homework on their laptops while downloading movies and talking on Facebook.
“So it’s not necessarily that they can’t do the math – but it’s not focused work.”
For the first time, York sent incoming math students an optional online quiz with special web help for stumbling blocks like trigonometry. (Next year, the quiz may be mandatory.) It also offered weak students a free one-week catch-up course on campus.
The University of Toronto has created four “flavours” of calculus for different levels of students – from business majors (the easiest) to “killer calculus” (for math brains).
“We’ve certainly seen a change since the end of the five-year program,” said Humar Murtry, head of the U of T math department. “We know high school students are not as prepared as they used to be. Math takes time to sink in.”
The U of T offers a $600 summer course for incoming students who want more prep.
A summer math test is already mandatory at Wilfrid Laurier University, where up to 30 per cent of first-year math students fail or drop the course, said department head David Vaughan.
Those who fared poorly on the test were offered a $150 three-week course called “tri-a-ge” for trigonometry, algebra and geometry.
“The weak link is absolutely algebra. Some think 2x + x equals 2x squared,” said Vaughan.
“High schools should scrap the half-course they offer in calculus and spend more time teaching students how to make fewer algebra mistakes.”
Laurier is considering steering most math students into a full-year math course – half a credit more than they need – to build in time for high school review.
School boards say they’ve heard universities’ concerns but believe they are starting to see number savvy grow.
“Quite frankly, we recognize our students’ results in math are not where we’d like to see them, but with teachers sharing ideas on how to make math more relevant, it’s paying dividends I think universities will soon see,” said Christopher Usih, superintendent for student success for the Toronto District School Board.
Deanna Jarvis of Etobicoke is one of 2,700 first-year students at the University of Guelph who were mailed nine hours of math problems this summer in a breezy new kit called “MP3 – math post-secondary preparation package.”
“It was so helpful to get those problems in the mail the first week of August and see where your weak spots are. I struggled a little with the trigonometry,” said Jarvis, 18, who needs math for the commerce program she’s entering.
Guelph professor Jack Weiner, who oversaw the new mail-out kit, said every August he gets emails from incoming students seized by math anxiety, so he figured “why not offer them a tool to see whether they should start now to get extra help?” He was delighted that 500 students used the answer website in the first two weeks.
Are you having trouble with high school math? It’s quite possible that you have “great potential” but are lacking some basic background skills. This lack of skills can manifest itself in the following ways:
- you can’t progress, because you are missing a step
- you feel as though you have “one hand tied behind your back” as you try to move forward in learning new math topics
- your teacher seems to assume that you are competent in certain skills, but you are not.
Math should not be treated like any high school subject. It is an important tool for learning other subjects: science, finance, etc.
An inability to do math, can result in an inability to study certain subjects in university of college.
You can and should learn the skills that you are missing.
I am creating a summer remedial “background math skills” program to teach high school math students the skills they need, but that they lack. It will run during the month of July. It will take place in downtown Toronto and will be taught by a certified/licensed Ontario high school math teacher.
If you have read this far, you should check out this article:
http://www.globecampus.ca/in-the-news/article/we-cant-afford-to-discount-math/
If you are interested please contact me at: 647-367-4744
or
torontoprep [at] gmail dot com
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