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Re: I have not tutored, but I teach. | 113 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Re: I have not tutored, but I teach.
Authored by: mpellatt on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 07:12 AM EDT
I couldn't do my job (mostly sysadmin, some programming) without search engines today.

Well, I could. I used to. How ?? Shelves and shelves of manuals. Searching their indices.

However, without an understanding of the fundamentals, both would be useless.

And I'm right with the belief that tables of integrals are inappropriate for calculus courses. In my lower sixth form year, our pure maths teacher - a hippie Oxbridge grad - preferred discussing existentialism and philosophy over teaching us calculus. I never, ever did enough integrations to learn the necessary pattern recognition. And from that, my grasp of calculus in general never got fully developed. It was a disability I carried through into my uni course - where, of course, calculus is fundamental to all engineering disciplines. Fortunately, Year 2 maths moved onto matrix algebra and stuff like that (handy for electronic circuit design IIRC) so my Desmond didn't descend to a 3rd....

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Re: I have not tutored, but I teach.
Authored by: lnuss on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 07:47 AM EDT
"Students are expected to know more and more
information, but still finish high school in 4 years..."

And many high school grads can't even do basic arithmetic (for example -- there
are other problems too). I was in a store recently, and the bill came to $4.80.
I handed the young clerk a five, reached into my pocket and got two dimes, which
I handed to him. He told me he had already rung up the transaction and wouldn't
accept the dimes. When I incredulously asked if he wasn't allowed to do that, he
said yes, but he'd have to get out a calculator.

Granted he wasn't a college student, but...

---
Larry N.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Re: I have not tutored, but I teach.
Authored by: JamesK on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 11:49 AM EDT
{
An engineering student has to take 4 courses of calculus
taught the old fashioned way, because that's how everyone else was taught.
Additionally, since the physics teachers don't want online tools used for their
final, everyone has to learn calculus the hard way, since they will have to do
it by hand on the physics final.
}

Well, I studied Electrical Engineering. It would be impossible for someone to
study engineering, without knowing the math that goes with it. Further, many of
those engineers will have to use math to do their work. Being able to grope
through calculations, when you don't understand what you're doing just won't
work.


---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Amen. - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 12:50 PM EDT
But, is it important to know how to set up the problem, or just that one can ... search
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 01:26 PM EDT
It depends how far back you want to take the question of how
"important" it is to know how to set up a problem instead of just
knowing how to do a web search for a solution, of course. Where do you draw the
line on that? How many people who cannot think straight can be assured of
success while searching for the solution?

Here is a problem which was asked recently in entrance and exit tests in all of
our courses up to first-semester calculus:

A store has put a television on sale, at a discount of 20%. The price of the
television during the sale is $319. What was the original price?

Forty four percent of our entering first semester calculus students could not do
this problem, and by the end of the academic term the number had decreased to
42%, probably due to attrition. To me, it is not terribly surprising that most
of those who entered a calculus course in such an abysmal state also left the
course in a similar condition. To solve such problems, of course, is not part of
the syllabus of a calculus course. But the ability to do such basic reasoning is
clearly a prerequisite for success in calculus, is it not? Or would you disagree
and say that it does not matter, and in this day and age they can look it up
somewhere out there on the internet?

So, my question to you is, is it OK that such a large proportion of the students
could not do this? Or does this carry that they-can-look-it-up stuff just a bit
too far, as I obviously believe. Another question is, whether they can just look
it up or not, what are they doing in the calculus class, where they obviously do
not belong? When such a high proportion of the students have such deficiencies,
it is obvious that some of those think they are going to be engineers. Do you
want those people to design the bridges you drive over? Or does the thought
scare the living daylights out of you, as I think it should? So, again, where do
we draw the line?

To the extent that you say

"We need to move curriculum towards being able to understand the problem,
and to
formulate the problem in a way so that tools can be used to solve the
problem."

I agree completely, of course. What I am having difficulty with is the idea that
students can always look up the solution. My point is that if they are below
some minimum level of reasoning, then no, they can't even look it up.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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