Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 925 posts

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#151

Post by [deleted] »

collabs wrote: post #38
kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

I am thinking why not use the iPad simply as a letter pad with infinite pages? the new iPad with the new iPad pencil can do that and I am sure with the right software you can write, erase, rewrite as much as you want? What am I missing?

[deleted]

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#152

Post by account42 »

mlsu wrote: post #62
kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

It’s definitely actively bad to involve a device in the vast majority of education. And, it’s a purely selfish thing by tech companies to insert themselves into education. A student should not see a computer until college or vocational school unless they are taking e.g a high school programming or electronics class.

Now that's just needlessly extreme in the other direction. Students will be seeing devices much earlier than that just because their peers will use them so it makes sense to educate them on their proper use and dangers much earlier than college. It just doesn't make sense to cram them into every subject because not using one is outdated.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#153

Post by ceejayoz »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #144
9dev wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's commendable, but what if your brother would not have had time for doing cross country in high school because he had to care for his siblings as your parents were poor and working double shifts? Or so heavily indebted due to a cancer therapy that he couldn't afford running shoes? > people without such advantages aren't given special accomodation They are not - but I'm specifically talking about the reverse…

>And that's commendable, but what if your brother would not have had time for doing cross country in high school because he had to care for his siblings as your parents were poor and working double shifts? Or so heavily indebted due to a cancer therapy that he couldn't afford running shoes? That's awful and unfortunate, but he still shouldn't have an extra hour shaved from his half-marathon times over his competitors…

Those are certainly shitty ways to ensure equity. Why are they what you jump to?

What if we did a better job helping parents with childcare and healthcare?

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#154

Post by nsxwolf »

layer8 wrote: post #118
snazz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how you restrict it with MDM profiles, it’s distracting compared to pencil/paper.

Can’t it run restricted to a single application in kiosk mode? Unless the application itself provides distraction, what would be distracting?

It's just not as good as a notebook. I've tried to make it as good. It sleeps, there's too much fumbling around with it to get to what you want. You lose the muscle memory of where something is in the book, you can't quickly flip to anything. You notice you used to do certain things, like flip to two different pages at once. Everything is just immediate and tactile.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#155

Post by booleandilemma »

ptek wrote: post #85
travisgriggs wrote: post #65

It’s ok. In the future, no one will do math. Mathematicians will be directors, with a team of math bots that they administer and direct. Instead of being managed, they will become the managers of mathematic autonomons. Universities need to get with the program. /s

Internet streamers will need to know basic math unless they are clowns.

[flagged]

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#156

Post by ceejayoz »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #126
ceejayoz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students Make up your mind? If their having to score higher than Black students is unfair, how is "Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites" not also unfair? What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement? As I noted elsewhere in the thread, wealth (translated to parenting time, tutoring acces…

I didn't say it was fair, I was pointing out the NYT being racially biased (as per usual). Imagine at a school that Jenny gets 10 cookies from the teacher, Timmy gets 3, and Johnny gets two. Billy sees all this, but he has a crush on Jenny, so when he tells everyone on the playground about it he doesn't say "Jenny got way more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!" Instead he says "Timmy got more cookies than Johnny…

> I was pointing out the NYT being racially biased

But we apparently agree that "somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students" is actually accurate on their part?

(The article also openly explains why, if you go past the headline a bit.)

> It was never intended to?

Then we shouldn't use it as such.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#157

Post by jazzpush2 »

kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

I had the opposite experience, as it were, teaching in the UC system. The politics were mostly fine, but the students, especially those post-COVID, were the problem.

Most of the students were always great. But it seemed like every quarter, there would be 5-10 problematic students whose, for lack of better term, entitlement, resulted in far more hours of work than worthwhile.

And don't get me started on the false disability claims (see [0] for a taste). If you even verbalize questioning one, you're eligible for discrimination.

I had a student claim, in the classroom forum for a STEM course, that making attendance optional (which I was pressured to do because of the high disability rate) was itself discriminatory, because it resulted in different lecture outcomes/attention profiles for students.

0: https://fortune.com/article/rise-in-elite-students-seeking-a...

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#158

Post by 9dev »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #139
9dev wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like people are paying for these courses is part of the actual problem, then? Students should not have any kind of entitlement whatsoever to pass classes other than merit.

Well... Maybe. From a customer point of view, they are paying for education. If they aren't getting education that's a problem. From a future employer point of view, they are looking for credentials. But the future employer isn't paying for it. Do we just admit that the purpose of school is to provide credentials, and that's what the students are actually paying for?

Framing it as a transaction is part of the problem IMHO. We have a collective interest that the majority of the population gets the best education possible. Turning universities into credential stores leads to all the negative side effects we're dealing with - pay to play schemes, dubious credential mills, rich families bribing universities, and so on.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#159

Post by WarmWash »

Why do we have such an easy time accepting peoples intrinsic athletic ability and such a difficult time accepting people's intrinsic mental ability?

To me this is a 1:1 comparison, but people lose their mind when I make the comparison. College isn't for everyone just like amateur league sport isn't for everyone.

I feel like I am going to a minor league baseball game and seeing a shortstop on the field with the motor control of a toddler, and while everyone is cheering them, I think I'm taking crazy pills wondering who the hell steered this guy towards baseball his whole life.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#160

Post by xhkkffbf »

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #40
valleyer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy works against you, given that tons of professional athletes come from poverty.

> tons of professional athletes come from poverty Is that actually the case?

Read up on Kobe Bryant or Bronny James.
Post reply on HN