I had a great title all lined up for this post: MediOchre. But Ochre turns out to be better than that, dammit, so I’ll play it straight.
Ochre is a very comprehensive set of teacher resources, including lesson plans, student workbooks, tests and so on, all mapped to the K-10 Australian Curriculum (and some of the State mutants). Ochre is also free; one is simply required to register. Can this all be a bad thing? Yes it can, although in practice it probably isn’t. Which is a bad thing.
It has been on the list to look at Ochre for some time now. I was then prodded a few days ago, when a friend sent me one of Ochre’s lesson plans. Ignoring that the lesson plan was a PowerPoint thing, which cannot be ignored, it was still pretty awful: confused and somewhat aimless, with non sequiturs straying into error. I suspected, however, that the plan sent to me, on a subtle and not-that-important conceptual introduction, was atypical, and that Ochre may be better on the bread and butter. That appears to be the case, although “bread and margarine” is perhaps the more apt analogy; Ochre may be better than mediocre but it’s still meh.
In general Ochre’s lesson plans seem reasonably solid for what they are. There are errors and weirdnesses, and Ochre stuffs up Pythagoras and the index laws, for example, but all of this is also true of the textbooks. For the bread and margarine stuff, it is not obvious to me that Ochre is worse than the currently available textbooks, and in places it seems notably better, more mathematically sound.
At the primary level, in particular, Ochre would appear to be of genuine value. Not only because there are few primary textbooks to otherwise use, but also because Ochre’s lesson sequences appear to exhibit some proper structure and sense, something utterly lacking in ACARA’s garbage curriculum, particularly at the primary level. There is decent if skittish attention to the traditional algorithms, for example, which only make a nano-appearance in the AC. That attention is eventually drowned out by calculator garbage, and the kids will still not learn their multiplication tables, so the kids will still be screwed, but at least Ochre is giving it the old college try.
This points to the problem with Ochre, which is double-barrelled. The main problem, of course, is that Ochre is framed around the AC and its State mutants, the latter perhaps being better but not better enough. The Curriculum is incoherent, toddler pool deep and smothered in “numeracy” sludge. The only sane approach to the AC is to ignore it as much as is humanly and administratively possible. For obvious reasons, however, Ochre does not have the license, or at least is unwilling to take the license, to treat the AC with the contempt it warrants.
This fundamental problem is then exacerbated by the very programmatic nature of Ochre’s materials. Without wishing to reignite the Greg feud, Ochre’s lesson plans read a hell of a lot like scripts (and it is difficult to imagine a Powerpoint plan ever functioning much differently). All of the Ochre materials are very much packaged, ready to use. Which is the intention and the attraction, of course. But Ochre’s materials are at best good enough, which is not nearly good enough.
The purpose of Ochre is that what you see is what the student will get. The problem with Ochre is that what you see is likely all that the student will get. And it is not enough. There is simply not enough technically challenging and deeper material in Ochre. The exercises don’t typically get that hard, and the little “rich” material I could locate was anything but rich.
This is in the nature of Ochre’s objective, and the shortcomings of this objective are not primarily Ochre’s fault; it is the fault of ACARA and the cabal of clueless education ministers that protect ACARA from proper accountability. But it is a truth that Ochre must acknowledge. In practice, Ochre can probably be only be so good, and not very good.
Ochre is likely a useful addition. So, yay, I guess. Whatever.
There is a tendency for various organisations to develop unit plans, lesson plans complete with learning intentions etc., that teachers can use. This will lead to a certain consistency which is widely regarded as a good thing. It will appeal for teachers who are expected to develop these plans; they will certainly save time, like a text book. Quality is the issue.
Of course. And the “quality” (or even adequacy) is even more of an issue because it is all built upon the idiotic AC.
But, even given questionable quality, what is the alternative? In secondary school, there is a general (if way too weak) sense of proper curriculum, and the appalling textbooks, which or may not be worse. In primary school, however, there is neither rhyme nor reason. It’s all just random maths stuff, totally unanchored.
The quality of Ochre was a lot higher than I expected, albeit with the concerns I noted.
I wonder – can Australian students read the textbooks? In my experience, the reading skills of many students are not up to scratch. Reading a 500-700 page text book in a technical subject is a daunting task. Probably a PhD in this question.
Students have never read the textbooks. They just need clear and well-chosen examples, and a very large number of solid, graduated exercises and problems. Which the textbooks do not now offer.
School students.
The school my son is zoned for has just moved from using Maths Pathways (thankfully as I was not happy with that) to Maths Ochre, still not happy. Is it an improvement? He’s really good at Maths and would probably want to do Specialist Maths as he wants to get into Medicine. Every other High School I’m considering uses the Cambridge texts. I’m so annoyed this high school didn’t change to Cambridge. Would you consider Maths Ochre vs Cambridge a deciding factor between choosing a high school for a student who wants to do really well in difficult Maths??
Thanks, Christine. I have a *lot* to write in response, so just replying quickly here to indicate that I will reply properly. Also, if you want to talk more about the specifics of your son and your son’s school, I’m happy to chat offline: just send me an email through the contact thingo.
Thanks again, Christine. Again, feel free to email if you wish to chat more specifically about your son’s situation but I’ll give my general thoughts here.
First of all, MP vs Ochre vs Cambridge: which would I choose? Option D.
None of these are even adequate resources, so I wouldn’t be selling the house in order to get option A or B or C. (For better resources, see here and, generally, here.) Having said that, MP is, by a mile, the worst.
If I had to choose, I would probably lean, very slightly, to Ochre over Cambridge. I really don’t like the scripted nature of Ochre, and the fact that Ochre aims way too low. But, within its self-imposed constraints, Ochre does things pretty well. Cambridge 7-10 aims higher, at times, but way too often misses, and usually misses by a wide margin. Whatever teachers and schools may say, the body of Cambridge’s texts, the explanations and examples, are pretty consistently appalling, in both choice and presentation. The main argument for the Cambridge texts are the exercises, but these are also not great and, even when good, are inconsistently good. There are some decent “extension” exercises in Cambridge, but more often these exercises are indecent, and even when the exercises are intrinsically good, they are usually so poorly constructed that the goodness is almost impossible to discern.
The main point to realise is that the 7-10 curriculum and the standard 7-10 resources are *not* the road to Specialist Mathematics and are *not* the road to a solid mathematical grounding (two very distinct goals). The K-10 Australian Curriculum, which the standard resources too faithfully reflect, is simply too weak and too perverted to prepare any student for solid senior mathematics.
What this means is that it matters little how a school provides mathematics for the plebs (although they have a professional and moral obligation to do much better than they do). What matters is what the school offers in way of streaming (best) and extension (good) and acceleration (not as good): what are the classes being offered, and does the school have a considered and wise view of the purposes of these offerings?
To reiterate the main point, I’ve yelled at schools for using some crap rather than Cambridge, but Cambridge is just slightly better crap. Ditto Ochre. No one should pretend or imagine otherwise.