71–80 of 142 posts
Very much yes. I am currently trying to tutor my daughter through college-level calculus. She wants to be a civil engineer. Civil engineers, obviously, need to know calculus. But calculus is not being taught to her by engineers. It is being taught by mathematicians. And as part of teaching it, they are attempting to instill a "mathematical mindset". Which means, in practice, that it is an entry to proofs. Every proof…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a weird argument to make. Does someone need to understand the workings of an internal combustion engine to drive a car?
You analogy doesn't hold. You don't need to understand most things (if any) to drive a car. But applying doing. statistical calculation, interpretation and everything else needs to he done with understanding. To understand why you take this distribution function over the other, you will need to understand them which means you need to understand motr fundamental concepts. surprisingly, they depend on your calculus und…
I majored in CS and minored in Math (graduated in 2013) as someone who both struggled with math and was not the biggest fan of it. My biggest problem was simply caring about the subject matter. None of the instructors I've ever had for math courses put any effort in to showing what the particular subject was useful for. It was all just mechanical "Here's a type of problem", "Here's 100 examples of solving it" (of cou…
And then no matter what was said for 3 hours in class, the homework immediately throws curveballs at you in each problem, instead of reinforcing what was learned, hoping to teach you exceptions that were not covered
There is not a large population this style of learning will hit with
Very much yes. I am currently trying to tutor my daughter through college-level calculus. She wants to be a civil engineer. Civil engineers, obviously, need to know calculus. But calculus is not being taught to her by engineers. It is being taught by mathematicians. And as part of teaching it, they are attempting to instill a "mathematical mindset". Which means, in practice, that it is an entry to proofs. Every proof…
I can show you statistics no human could understand taught to… Business Admin majors.
How about the case for making science majors more rigorous instead of less? Calculus touches so much of science and engineering (not to mention everyday life) that suggesting removing it from the curriculum seems not just ignorant, but downright malicious. Talk about setting a generation up to fail. Perhaps a better discussion is how to teach calculus more effectively?
So: you need better syllabi and teachers.
Do they teach measure theory and the Radon-Nykodim theorem in those Statistics courses? And the central limit with proofs? No.
So: it is not the Calculus. It is the teaching of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Everyone knows that nearly no engineers use calculus in their day job. Therefore, the purpose and measure of success isn't whether an engineer uses calculus in their day job. It is a great signal of technical problem solving ability, it is really powerful having a large pool of people who are trained in working with rates, areas and margins." I'm not saying that calculus is useless in an engineer's education - far f…
It sounds like your daughter might enjoy reading my MATH+PHYS book. It covers mechanics and calculus in an integrated manner. I don't do all the proofs, so might not be a good fit for a proofs-based, course, but lots of illustrations and intuition. Preview here: https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSmathphys_v5_pr... Concept map here: https://minireference.com/static/conceptmaps/math_and_physic... Also be sur…
Very much yes. I am currently trying to tutor my daughter through college-level calculus. She wants to be a civil engineer. Civil engineers, obviously, need to know calculus. But calculus is not being taught to her by engineers. It is being taught by mathematicians. And as part of teaching it, they are attempting to instill a "mathematical mindset". Which means, in practice, that it is an entry to proofs. Every proof…
However, I wouldn't want to change the university curriculum. I believe universities should not be seen as preparation for jobs, but as preparations for research. It is quite unfortunate that institutions that just teach the part of the field that is really needed in the job have such low reputations. Two years at a trade school would be more than sufficient to learn everything you _really_ need to know as a programmer in all but the most specialized jobs.
Very much yes. I am currently trying to tutor my daughter through college-level calculus. She wants to be a civil engineer. Civil engineers, obviously, need to know calculus. But calculus is not being taught to her by engineers. It is being taught by mathematicians. And as part of teaching it, they are attempting to instill a "mathematical mindset". Which means, in practice, that it is an entry to proofs. Every proof…
On the other hand, what do I know? The civil engineering plans for our place had glaring errors that the construction workers caught after doing half the earthmoving.
Even after it was fixed, the results lasted less than one rainstorm. When we went back and checked the contracts we signed, they made it clear they assume zero liability for incompetence. Hiring a lawyer is more expensive than renting an excavator, and fixing it ourselves.
Anyway, I'm not impressed with the corner of that field I interacted with, and would prefer they tighten the educational standards.