Science and Math Course Outline M1, M2, and M3

[sensei]

Is there an online resource that has the complete science and mathematics course outline M1, M2, and M3 that can be used for EP and MEP? I want to see one that is based on the Thai curriculum and follows the proper sequence  the topics are covered in the Thai (regular) program. I hope you won't mind sharing if you have a copy or a link.

 

Thank you! 

[muzmurray]

Surely your school will have the curriculum ? How else are their teachers teaching the subjects ?

[sensei]

1 hour ago, muzmurray said:

Surely your school will have the curriculum ? How else are their teachers teaching the subjects ?

Yes, but everything is in Thai. I'm looking for an ENGLISH version especially for Supplementary Science and Supplementary Mathematics

[muzmurray]

Could you not ask one of your work mates to translate it? Or even run it through a translator yourself ? Or see what content is in the books that they use?

[sensei]

2 hours ago, muzmurray said:

Could you not ask one of your work mates to translate it? Or even run it through a translator yourself ? Or see what content is in the books that they use?

You obviously haven't tried using Google Translate nor tried talking to Thai teachers with very limited English.

 

Thank you for your replies but what you are saying doesn't  provide me with the information that i need.

[Scott]

Posts removed, and one member put on suspension.   If you cannot be helpful, then please move on to another topic.  

 

I have run into this in the past and translation is not always accurate, even in person.   We had a weekly meeting with the Thai teachers (and someone to translate) for lesson planning.   I was told the next topic was light.   I thought it was a little complicated for the students, but got an entire weeks worth of lessons ready, only to later find out that it was about the human eye.  

 

If you cannot be helpful, you can still be civil.  

 

 

[somchaismith]

You write like you are lostinthailand.

 

[ozmeldo]

Would not your outline need to follow your book(s) and/or materials? Usually books are laid out in some sort of progressive steps.

[stubuzz]

No English curriculum for the foreigners.  Sounds like the blind are leading the blind.

[sensei]

2 hours ago, stubuzz said:

No English curriculum for the foreigners.  Sounds like the blind are leading the blind.

The school provided me with a course outline for basic science. Comparing it to the course outline of my previous school, there's a big difference in the sequence of the topics. 

The books that I have are supposed to follow the Thai curriculum but a Thai teacher  says that some topics in the M1 book should be covered in M2 and the same goes with some topics in the M3 book. 

No outline is provided for supplementary science, none at all. That is exactly what I am looking for here. 

 

My only concern is that I teach exactly what is being taught in the normal classes so that my EP will be ready for any school-wide exams they would surely have to take in the future. 

Thank you for all the responses. I'll do what's most logical right now. I'll get a copy of whatever the Science Department has in Thai and have it translated by the English teachers in the Foreign Language Department.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[stubuzz]

Why are you asking for the curriculum 1 month before the end of the school year?

[sensei]

Just now, stubuzz said:

Why are you asking for the curriculum 1 month before the end of the school year?

Good question.

I am actually preparing for the next school year when so much is at stake. There is a bigger reason that i would rather not discuss here publicly.

*Hint
New school director, greater demands, the constant threat of replacing (firing) the current roster of teachers

[stubuzz]

I understand your concern, but a school that doesn't supply its teachers with the correct information does not sound good. However, to cover your ass write a letter/ email  asking for the curriculum in English and send it to all concerned.

[ozmeldo]

6 hours ago, sensei said:

Good question.

I am actually preparing for the next school year when so much is at stake. There is a bigger reason that i would rather not discuss here publicly.

*Hint
New school director, greater demands, the constant threat of replacing (firing) the current roster of teachers

 

Good luck. Sounds like you are one of the rare breed that care in a school that might as well +2

Edited January 22, 2017 by ozmeldo

[sensei]

21 minutes ago, ozmeldo said:

 

Good luck. Sounds like you are one of the rare breed that care in a school that might as well +2

stubuzz said:
I understand your concern, but a school that doesn't supply its teachers with the correct information does not sound good. However, to cover your ass write a letter/ email  asking for the curriculum in English and send it to all concerned.

Thanks.

I got a couple of links and files from different sources. 

I will dive into the mud and have everything cleared up with my Thai teaching partners and have everything laid out the way everything is taught in the regular (not EP) classes.

 

@stubuzz. Really, nothing wrong with the school and the teachers, and my students. We have a new director and he's got a different set of expectations as compared to the last one. What is at stake here now is my job and everything else that hinges on that.

If any Science, Mathematics, or Health teachers need it, just send me a PM and i will share the stuff i got with you.

 

Mods can now close this thread if necessary

 

[Scott]

The problem is that each year they change the curriculum.   The English text doesn't follow the Thai curriculum.  Years ago, we spent considerable time writing science books for the Prathom level in English, but by the next year, they were no longer in sequence and after a couple of years, the Ministry of Education had removed some topics and added others.   They had also changed the amount of time spent on some topics to two-three weeks and others were shortened.  

 

One example of this is we had a section which dealt with the rotation of the moon around the earth and this was removed from Science and added to the Social Studies curriculum.   I can only guess that it has to do with Buddhists following the lunar cycle, but no explanation is given for the changes.  

 

It's important to remember that much of the curriculum is under the direction of politicians, who make decisions which do not always correspond to what might be good or logical teaching practices.  

[bloody tiger]

hi Sensai, did you ever find any links that you were after? This is exactly what I am chasing now

[sensei]

10 hours ago, bloody tiger said:

hi Sensai, did you ever find any links that you were after? This is exactly what I am chasing now

I'll send you a PM @BloodyTiger 

[SlyAnimal]

On 6/5/2018 at 10:57 AM, bloody tiger said:

hi Sensai, did you ever find any links that you were after? This is exactly what I am chasing now

 

I've attached a copy of the Thai curriculium, in English.  It's from 10 years ago, but a lot will still apply.

 

I also have maths text books for M1 - M3 which likely follow the Thai curriculum, and could give you a list of the topics they cover.

My school didn't give me a text book or course outline or any guidance at all on what to teach M4 - M6, so I simply went and found the Thai teachers that were responsible for teaching each year group and asked them what they were going to be teaching, and then cherrypicked a few topics from that.  You'll likely find that the Thai maths teachers will know some of the math specific terms, and if you (or they) were to give examples then that might help to.

If you don't know any Thai, get an English teacher to translate for you, or to maybe just write something down for you which explains that you will be teaching maths and want to know what topics the Thai teachers will be teaching that semester.

However, in saying that, what I actually found was that a large proportion of the students were terrible at maths, and that they should actually still be learning primary school maths rather than high school maths.  Once I discovered this, I started giving the students pre-tests at the start of each year, which covered all of what I expected them to have learnt in primary school (Some of which, like squares, cubes and roots, are also covered in M1).

 

I found that in particular, students were terrible at equations involving negatives, and only a few students in each class understood the order of oprations (Even in M6!).  Likewise, their squares/cubes/roots were were below what I expected, with some students not even knowing how to calculate them, let alone just making errors.  Some students even made errors on basic times tables (I included everything from super easy questions like "7 + 15" to more difficult questions like "8² - 3³ x 4"). 

 

As a result, I felt that it was in the student's best interests to cover whichever areas of maths the pretest highlighted were weaknesses for the students, as well as giving them a refresher on the basic maths vocabulary at the same time, before I actually started teaching the curriculum.  I then gave them a post test at the end and found that most of them had improved a lot, so was well worth the maybe 5 - 6 lessons I spent on it.

Although, while going over their basic maths, I of course discovered that despite Thailand having a terrible reputation for learning by rote, only a few good students had actually learnt their times tables by rote, and so most needed a long time to think of the answers to basic multiplication problems, and a pen + paper to figure out basic division problems, which of course was going to make the actual curriculum extremely difficult for them.

Therefore, I setup a times tables speaking test as one of their assessments, and put up a cash prize for the top students in the class/school (Gave the same test to M1 - M6, as they all needed to work on it), with a practice test followed by a real test a week later, with learning to be done in their own time.  I assessed them via 1 minute speaking tests, in which the highest scores would be the winners (And the first 10 would contribute towards their grades). 

Some students still got 1s and 0s, and I found that with these students part of the problem was that although they could count to 10, and some could do some of the sums in Thai (I know a little Thai, so could ask them the equations in Thai),  they didn't even know 1 - 10 if the numbers were out of sequence, let alone 11 - 19 (Which are quite difficult, since they don't follow the regular format of the other numbers).  So this was yet another thing to work on, although I mainly just tried to motivate them to learn in their own time.

After which I finally started on the curriculum.  I hope that your students are smarter than mine were, although in saying that the top students were amazing, and could calculate equations faster than I could (Even in English, and despite not being a maths major, I was still pretty good at maths in high school), and had usually studied ahead via tutors so already knew how to do things before I even started writing on the whiteboard, they just needed to learn the English vocabulary for it. 

 

Anyway, moral of the story is that I think it's well worth initially doing your own curriculum to ensure that they know the basics before trying to teach them anything more complicated.

 

thai curriculum.pdf

Edited June 6, 2018 by SlyAnimal

[jenny2017]

Have you got access to a projector? I can offer some great PowerPoints. Please see example attached. 

 

  

 

Multiplying With Fractions.pptx

Edited June 6, 2018 by jenny2017

[NetJunkie]

13 hours ago, SlyAnimal said:

in which the highest scores would be the winners (And the first 10 would contribute towards their grades). 

 

Are you saying that only 10 out of all your students got marks towards their grade? What about all the rest, did they just get zero?

[sensei]

23 hours ago, SlyAnimal said:

 

I've attached a copy of the Thai curriculium, in English.  It's from 10 years ago, but a lot will still apply.

 

I also have maths text books for M1 - M3 which likely follow the Thai curriculum, and could give you a list of the topics they cover.

My school didn't give me a text book or course outline or any guidance at all on what to teach M4 - M6, so I simply went and found the Thai teachers that were responsible for teaching each year group and asked them what they were going to be teaching, and then cherrypicked a few topics from that.  You'll likely find that the Thai maths teachers will know some of the math specific terms, and if you (or they) were to give examples then that might help to.

If you don't know any Thai, get an English teacher to translate for you, or to maybe just write something down for you which explains that you will be teaching maths and want to know what topics the Thai teachers will be teaching that semester.

However, in saying that, what I actually found was that a large proportion of the students were terrible at maths, and that they should actually still be learning primary school maths rather than high school maths.  Once I discovered this, I started giving the students pre-tests at the start of each year, which covered all of what I expected them to have learnt in primary school (Some of which, like squares, cubes and roots, are also covered in M1).

 

I found that in particular, students were terrible at equations involving negatives, and only a few students in each class understood the order of oprations (Even in M6!).  Likewise, their squares/cubes/roots were were below what I expected, with some students not even knowing how to calculate them, let alone just making errors.  Some students even made errors on basic times tables (I included everything from super easy questions like "7 + 15" to more difficult questions like "8² - 3³ x 4"). 

 

As a result, I felt that it was in the student's best interests to cover whichever areas of maths the pretest highlighted were weaknesses for the students, as well as giving them a refresher on the basic maths vocabulary at the same time, before I actually started teaching the curriculum.  I then gave them a post test at the end and found that most of them had improved a lot, so was well worth the maybe 5 - 6 lessons I spent on it.

Although, while going over their basic maths, I of course discovered that despite Thailand having a terrible reputation for learning by rote, only a few good students had actually learnt their times tables by rote, and so most needed a long time to think of the answers to basic multiplication problems, and a pen + paper to figure out basic division problems, which of course was going to make the actual curriculum extremely difficult for them.

Therefore, I setup a times tables speaking test as one of their assessments, and put up a cash prize for the top students in the class/school (Gave the same test to M1 - M6, as they all needed to work on it), with a practice test followed by a real test a week later, with learning to be done in their own time.  I assessed them via 1 minute speaking tests, in which the highest scores would be the winners (And the first 10 would contribute towards their grades). 

Some students still got 1s and 0s, and I found that with these students part of the problem was that although they could count to 10, and some could do some of the sums in Thai (I know a little Thai, so could ask them the equations in Thai),  they didn't even know 1 - 10 if the numbers were out of sequence, let alone 11 - 19 (Which are quite difficult, since they don't follow the regular format of the other numbers).  So this was yet another thing to work on, although I mainly just tried to motivate them to learn in their own time.

After which I finally started on the curriculum.  I hope that your students are smarter than mine were, although in saying that the top students were amazing, and could calculate equations faster than I could (Even in English, and despite not being a maths major, I was still pretty good at maths in high school), and had usually studied ahead via tutors so already knew how to do things before I even started writing on the whiteboard, they just needed to learn the English vocabulary for it. 

 

Anyway, moral of the story is that I think it's well worth initially doing your own curriculum to ensure that they know the basics before trying to teach them anything more complicated.

 

thai curriculum.pdf

Thanks for the input. I have an updated version here (2018).
This is for the main science course

 

Science Curriculum1 (1).docx

[SlyAnimal]

On 6/7/2018 at 11:10 AM, NetJunkie said:

 

Are you saying that only 10 out of all your students got marks towards their grade? What about all the rest, did they just get zero?

No, that'd be stupid.

The first 10 questions that they answered i.e. If they answer 10 in 1 minute they got the full score (10/10).