41–50 of 87 posts
If anyone cares to share, I'd love to hear some opinions about at what point someone switches from "non-mathematician" status to "mathematician" status.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of being sarcastic, the suggestion seems to be that mathematics is best taught through stereotypical management consulting interview questions. Or the apocryphal (?) Google interview questions like how many ping pong balls can fit on a bus. ADDED: I also suspect that the average high school student lacks the world knowledge to come up with meaningful guestimates for the inputs to many of those questions.…
Unfortunately, probability and stats are not easy to teach, and even many professional scientists / researchers have major confusions about the subjects. Common sense actually provides a decent enough guide for most people (i.e a baseball player with a high batting average is more likely to hit the ball). Euclidean geometry as taught in school does seem rather archaic and out of place though. Some people say it's an…
If anyone cares to share, I'd love to hear some opinions about at what point someone switches from "non-mathematician" status to "mathematician" status.
If anyone cares to share, I'd love to hear some opinions about at what point someone switches from "non-mathematician" status to "mathematician" status.
How should physics be taught to non-physicists?
How should writing be taught to non-writers?
How should car maintenance be taught to non-mechanics?
I guess my point is, why should we teach mathematics any differently to "non-mathematicians" than we do to "mathematicians"? I mean, at the point when you're first teaching someone, how do you even know if they're a "non-mathematician" or a "mathematician"? After all, they haven't learned enough yet to know if they'd want to continue in that field of study.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, probability and stats are not easy to teach, and even many professional scientists / researchers have major confusions about the subjects. Common sense actually provides a decent enough guide for most people (i.e a baseball player with a high batting average is more likely to hit the ball). Euclidean geometry as taught in school does seem rather archaic and out of place though. Some people say it's an…
How is learning facts about the space we all live in is "out of place"? Geometry continues to be extremely useful. In fact, in its generalized forms it is one of the most important parts of the modern mathematical thought. If anything, for a mathematically inclined student learning geometry, I imagine, would be much more both instructive and fun, than some "first order logic".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what bunch of high school students wouldn't want an IT class that taught compiler design The majority of high school students can hardly wrap their brains around the AP curriculum (probably for lack of time or effort, rather than ability). There are some that are honestly, actually interested in computer science and are thus capable of stuff like that... but they are low in number. What might be able to work is a f…
A course designed around using a particular "modern" web technology stack will have to change too often (every time it doesn't become "modern" anymore) for it to be sustainable. Imagine that in 2016 you have a course centered around using what was modern in 2006. That would inevitably happen with a course like that. I'd rather teach programming from 0 to making a really basic 2D game (be it in C++ or Python or whatev…
I know, teaching today's web standards means they'll be out of date within the next ten years. But I believe the improvement of the web is asymptotic and will slowly come to a halt in the coming years... that and I would never forgive myself for not refreshing a course when it's too old to be applied to the real world, as a pragmatist. Finally, I don't think Vue will beat React too quickly.
(I'm not an educator, but I've spoken with a few on some of these topics.)
When you consider how mathematics, an understanding of probability, and so on enhances your ability to see through bullshit in advertising, government, and to some extent religions (not faith, just religions); it's not hard to understand why so many people are not thrilled at the notion.
Why exclude faith? For PC sake?
Do other disciplines ask similar questions? How should physics be taught to non-physicists? How should writing be taught to non-writers? How should car maintenance be taught to non-mechanics? I guess my point is, why should we teach mathematics any differently to "non-mathematicians" than we do to "mathematicians"? I mean, at the point when you're first teaching someone, how do you even know if they're a "non-mathema…
And it does make sense to have "math for mathematicians" or "physics for physicists" classes. You see this a lot in college (often intro classes are divided into different "levels"). This allows some students to accelerate and others to still learn relevant materials but at a more appropriate pace.