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An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

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Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#341

Post by texaslonghorn5 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #323
cowboysauce wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies throughout the country. But for me it was: * Calculus I: limits, derivatives, integrals * Calculus II: More integration techniques (substitution, by parts, table), infinite series and convergence, basic numerical methods * Calculus III: multi-variable calculus (partial derivatives, multiple integrals), vector calculus (gradient, divergence, curl, surface and line integrals) ODEs were a class you could take…

Wait, is this high school or college? That looks like 3 different courses you're listing there - I've never heard of a high school offering more than a single year of calculus.

Some schools which allow students to take calculus 1 and 2 before senior year also offer multivariate calculus (3), differential equations, and linear algebra courses to round out the fourth year of math. This is especially prevalent when students can take geometry in 8th grade which leads to Algebra II, Pre-Cal, Calculus, Advanced Math Electives as the four year progression.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#342

Post by 7speter »

klodolph wrote: post #215
FFRefresh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt that the people crafting these proposals care. I think they truly believe they are doing the right thing. I personally think it's just increasingly popular, mistaken moral beliefs that inform these types of proposals. Some of the underlying beliefs: 1. Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability 2. Any observable differences between humans are merely the result of social factors 3. Any observable diff…

I don't think that those beliefs are a workable explanation here. These proposals come from committees and groups of people, and it's just not realistic to write off the entire group of people behind these proposals as having some uniform set of beliefs like that, especially when they give other rationales for the proposals! The current school system makes decisions in middle school (8th grade and earlier) which dete…

I don’t necessarily agree with the proposal in california, but do all students need to take calculus in high school? What about solid coverage of algebra 2 and pre calc before higher education. Community college is a great place to take a calc class (or even a pre calc class) affordably. Source: took pre calc, calc and stat in community college after being signalled to that I was terrible at math throughout high school.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#343

Post by [deleted] »

khazhoux wrote: post #198
vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like more woke nonsense You are right that this is a lot of nonsense. Specifically, 'you aren't good at math/math is hard' is the nonsense meme that gets hammered into student heads so frequently during school that most of them actually start to believe it. It's not some kind of novel woke nonsense, though, it's how math instruction on this continent has been happening over the past X decades. The wokies are…

I don't understand if you're saying that every kid is equally good at math. Or, similarly, that every kid that the same capacity for it or ability to pickup math concepts. Because it seems to me that if you have experience with any sampling of children where N>1, you'll see that's simply not true.

[deleted]

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#344

Post by alimov »

pessimizer wrote: post #169
alimov wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “…no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers.” If you look at people that are not academically inclined and call them under performers then maybe that’s part of the issue. I think everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and if someone is more inclined to do vocational training rather than the standard track I think their strengths and interests should be developed / encouraged. An educator…

It's not whether people are more suited for vocational or "standard track." It's our aptitude for judging that in children.

That’s a good point. I am not aware of a “good” way to make that kind of judgement, especially considering the lack of resources available to those that would be making such a judgement (k-12 educators at public schools)

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#345

Post by mrob »

dymk wrote: post #195
cwkoss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is calculus an important highschool goal? I feel like I may have benefited more if that time was spent on statistical literacy than calculus. I encounter stats very often in my adult life, calculus style problems are rare and I don't remember the formulas offhand, so end up just looking up what I need.

The abstract concepts of calculus are useful and will shape the way you think about and go about solving problems, even if you don't explicitly employ an integral or derivative. Rates, sums, areas, volumes, etc. Learn the nuts and bolts in highschool, use the intuition for the rest of your life.

The abstract concepts are useful, but in practice most effort is spent on applying rote symbol manipulation rules to questions specifically designed such that applying the most obvious rule at each step will reach the solution. The idea of a tree search in symbol manipulation is never taught, so if you try solving non-trivial real-world problems you will likely manipulate yourself into a dead end.

Highschool calculus should be taught with computer algebra software. That's what you'll use in real life as soon as you find an even slightly difficult calculus problem. There's not enough time to teach both the symbol manipulation rules and the intuition.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#346

Post by selimthegrim »

bpoyner wrote: post #236
idoh wrote: post #120

SF CA resident, parent of two school age children chiming in. The direction with math seems pretty dismal, in that as of right now, everyone is singly tracked together for math through freshman year of high school. This results in children who have higher aptitudes[1] to not be well served by schools. The majority of people I know who have the means opt out of the public school system, which probably makes the proble…

That would drive my wife up the wall. Our school district in the Pittsburgh suburbs has 5 math tracks from grades 4-12. They just added linear algebra because so many kids were maxing out the available math curriculum.

And the course is what, elementary row operations?

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#347

Post by [deleted] »

throwawayboise wrote: post #192
cool_dude85 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you suggest is already the case. The book and exercises are "here" for you to do, nobody to stop you. It's called the internet. The calculus police doesn't come get you if you're reading a calc book in 10th grade. It's just that you don't have any way of getting instruction or school credit - so you are very unlikely to be successful, and not very likely to have your university credit you as having mastered the…

Any high schooler can take the AP calculus test and earn credit, no?

[deleted]

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#348

Post by ThrustVectoring »

npunt wrote: post #131
cortesoft wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the gist of the argument is that when you split students into 'normal' and 'advanced' classes at a young age, the students who are not put into the advanced classes will believe they are just naturally not good at math and will give up on trying to get better because they will think they just "don't have a math brain". Here is a short blurb about the idea: > The framework would not forbid districts from acc…

Yep, tracking students into systems like high/low early on makes it very hard to ever escape that track, as they're a sort of self-perpetuating system. That has downstream effects for one's entire life. It's a crude method of personalizing education within the context of factory education. Downsides are that kids develop at different times, have different educational needs, have home life issues that can temporarily…

Another non-obvious problem is that you can get mis-tracked too low even on the highest track. It happened to me. There was an assessment test on entering middle school for how many classes up you got shifted, I went into the highest bucket with 4 other kids. Last year of middle school we had to get bussed into the local high school for math education and back for everything else.

I was not seriously challenged and felt like math classes wasted my time.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#349

Post by TaylorAlexander »

canadaduane wrote: post #226
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly very happy that I learned calculus in high school. I then got a 5 on the AP calculus test and tested in to third quarter calculus in college. It was important as an engineer to understand those concepts. I don't use them too often and I forgot a lot of it, but I really enjoyed it and I think it would be unfortunate if other students did not have that opportunity. I agree stats would be great too!

As a software engineer, I wish I had learned stats instead of calculus. Some exposure would have been great, but the high school & university requirements were way off target wrt its usefulness in computer science. It was a painful process of learning, failing, and re-taking calculus, squeaking by, only to never use it again. I was a straight-A student otherwise.

I get that. As a robotics engineer, some cursory understanding of integrals and derivatives is useful.

But what I really mean is that, as a person, I just really enjoyed calculus. I found I was very good at it, and that experience helped me understand why some people choose to focus their career on pure mathematics. I am happy I took calculus not as a means of training for the workforce, but because I found it enriching on its own. And I never would have taken all that time if it wasn't offered to me as a class in public school that counted as credits towards graduation.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#350

Post by TimPC »

deanCommie wrote: post #336
TimPC wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Professor of Mathematics Education is a role that fits into a woke section of academia and generally publishes woke forms of advocate research. Many people can study mathematics education without studying much mathematics at all. When the Mathematicians and Scientists are screaming that the policy is nonsense, I'm not convinced by an advocacy researcher saying it's rigorous work.

https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Can you make specific arguments instead of devolving to shorthand dogwhistles that are completely up to the interpretation of the reader. The term 'woke' has no meaning, depending on the context it's anything between "We should shame all white people for the crimes of their ancestors" to "We should make a movie with a female lead". By using it, you leave it am…

The specific argument is that the Mathematicians and Scientists are screaming that the policy is nonsense. The other specific argument is that a researcher in mathematics education doesn't need to take a lot of mathematics. The inference is that we should trust the former set of people more even on matters of mathematics education.
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