Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
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Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
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Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#2Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#3> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I
Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty?
Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don't remember it being introduced with the branding or fanfare that US calculus courses seem to have. Maybe treating it a no big deal is helpful to avoid the barrier that it apparently creates.
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#4> The findings suggest that a major factor in women’s decisions to leave STEM paths after Calculus I have nothing to do with ability, but confidence in their ability. (Though this particular study did not examine students’ grades in the class, a 2015 paper about college math concluded that women outperform men in Calc I.)
I don't understand. They have no confidence, yet they outperform the men? So, they take the class, do well, then decide it was a failure? That doesn't make sense.
Another issue is that they're looking at Calc I in freshman year of college. Many of the top-performing STEM students probably took AP Calculus in high school and tested out of Calc I. What does the gender breakdown look like there?
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#5> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty? Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don…
That's because our marketing department in the UK isn't as awesome as the ones they have in the States... have you not noticed that _everything_ has far more fanfare in the States than anywhere else on earth? Everything is so dramatic... including the "notoriously difficult" calculus. It's just their way of patronizing you with "don't worry if you don't understand, it's notoriously difficult" or put you on a pedestal "wow, you must be a wizard to understand that, it's notoriously difficult."
It's just like everything else in the visible universe: A bunch of simple fundamentals put together to make something complicated, wrapped up in a bunch of jargon making it look scarier than it is, like the monster under your bed that only exists in your head.
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#6> The findings suggest that a major factor in women’s decisions to leave STEM paths after Calculus I have nothing to do with ability, but confidence in their ability. (Though this particular study did not examine students’ grades in the class, a 2015 paper about college math concluded that women outperform men in Calc I.) I don't understand. They have no confidence, yet they outperform the men? So, they take the clas…
Some of this is in the eye of the beholder. I've seen people working 10+ hours in a class and still end up with an A, but found the process mentally exhausting. Others might barely work at it and end up with an A-, and think that it was pretty easy.
At least in my experience as a math major undergraduate, calculus was a class that introduces students to rigorous proofs and new lines of thinking, but in examination seldom tests students on proof-ability. Later classes such as Real/Complex Analysis are where you are expected to produce proofs during examinations. So I would not be surprised if some people 'saw the writing on the wall' in that they could solve problems on examinations but were lost on the theoretical content.
Oddly enough, (also anecdotal) I'll mention that STEM majors in the hard sciences and mathematics seemed far less obsessed about GPA than many other majors. So a Bio major (especially if they were pre-med), for instance, would be much more stressed about upcoming examinations than the math or physics folks.
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#7> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty? Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don…
American here. I took Calculus I in both highschool and college. I thought it was easy in highschool. The rigor of the college course was incomparable. Mostly because the way they asked the questions on the exams were far more demanding.
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#8The sad thing is there are already many well-researched strategies for improving the success of all students in calculus and significantly reducing any gaps between student groups.
Things like:
* Teaching the math in context instead of abstractly. See https://engineering-computer-science.wright.edu/research/eng...
* Give students opportunities to learn from one another in groups, using techniques like peer instruction, peer-assisted reflection, peer-led team learning, supplemental instruction, etc. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40753-015-0005-y
* Use adaptive learning tools that help personalize the learning, give students extensive practice, and let them go at their own pace. See ALEKS or MyMathLab, for example.
* Teach students how to learn, how to study, how to manage their time, etc. See for example this class https://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/lrngclas.htm or this lesson https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/Titles/TeachStudentsHow...
* Certified training for tutors, peer mentors, teaching assistants, and the like http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/learning_assistants/inde... http://www.cirtl.net/
* Train the faculty on how to teach better with active learning instead of just lecturing http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-b...
There was a national study even of what the best calculus programs do: https://launchings.blogspot.com/2014/01/maa-calculus-study-s...
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#9> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty? Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don…
American here. I took Calculus I in both highschool and college. I thought it was easy in highschool. The rigor of the college course was incomparable. Mostly because the way they asked the questions on the exams were far more demanding.
That's because in high school you're not really given the whole picture of how to apply your knowledge and you don't have the life experience yet to understand how to use it usefully so while you understand the math in a limited fashion, you don't really get it. By the time you're in College, you're expected to really get it by the time you sit down in an exam and can apply it to the real world. So the exam questions are designed to test if you really do get it or if you're just going through the motions of what you were taught.
Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests
#10> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty? Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don…
Calc 1 in college is a common weed-out class.