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"The midterms don't count if you don't want them to, which means 100% of your grade can be the final." And that's your choice. How is it his fault for giving yo

"The midterms don't count if you don't want them to, which means 100% of your grade can be the final." And that's your choice. How is it his fault for giving you a choice? "Most of it is literally just memorizing a proof." Proofs are more important than memorizing a formula and forgetting it after a couple of month. "Convinced me to be a math major by inciting my passion for math." That's way more important than stuffing you with formulas, algorithms and problems. If you have a passion for something, learning comes more easily and naturally. By giving you confidence and passion, he gave you the greatest gift he could possibly give. You can find theorems, proofs, problems and solutions in countless books. The information is there, all of it. Structured in many different ways. And he gave you the courage to go out and explore. I wish I had that as a freshman. Instead I got fear. Fear of failing. Fear of being mocked in class. Fear of not being good enough. And I cowered in fear. I learned mechanically, memorizing formulas and problems by heart. What good where the quizzes, hard exams and midterms to me when I couldn't understand and apply what I was supposed to be learning?

TruePath 11y ago
While I agree that the most important thing is convincing the 1 person out of 1,000 to be a math major (or physics or whatever) I'm afraid the university isn't ok with handing everyone else As without mastering a certain minimum skill set. Besides, the math department isn't a free agent in this. Other departments expect students who have passed math 1A to have certain skills. If the math department was free to teach math 1A as an advertisement for mathematics (the way other departments get to teach their base courses) it would be a much different class. Hell, it wouldn't even be about calculus. So long as the physicists, economists, chemists etc.. etc.. say "we need students with skills X, Y and Z" there has to be a class whose content (and hence a decent grade in) is X, Y and Z. The name of that class is 1A and it helps no one to just teach a different class under that name without reforming the system. The math department ALREADY OFFERS OTHER CLASSES DESIGNED TO DO EXPOSE STUDENTS TO MATH IN EXACTLY THE WAY YOU MENTION. These are courses that deliberately avoid the equations and rote memorization that generated so much fear in high school and are designed to be low stress while showing off the wonder and creativity of mathematics. Unfortunately, few people ever take these courses because students don't want any more math than they have to take and the guidance counselors and university won't push or require them. As you said about the final (which I wholeheartedly agree with) if you give students the choice how is it the department's fault you take it. Students have a choice to approach math in a more exploratory, more encouraging fashion but they choose to do the minimum needed to take whatever other class they need. It's ironic because that's also what makes calculus so hard for them...they want to apply a rule and confidently move on...not think hard about a math problem in ways that might be dead ends. That is what's so sad about math education. Understanding comes from trying to fit the concepts together and even (especially) professional mathematicians fail 90% of the time. Students, especially those who haven't done well in math find that very distressing. Hell, pick any subject you aren't good at (which has clear success/failure conditions) and really try to do it well. It makes you feel dumb and you give up. Add to that years of pre-college math (often taught by teachers who themselves seek the reassurance of rote procedure) which brain washes the curious kids into believing that doing math is just applying procedures and it's an uphill battle. Ultimately, I think the problem is that we try and force kids who aren't really interested to know math they don't need. Just like other subjects let the students who want to learn come to you. With the advent of modern computer algebra system no one benefits making kids memorize rote procedures beyond basic arithmetic since without understanding they will never apply it in the real world.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  This would make sense as a counter argument if his students who took Math 1A from him didn't also do better on other math courses than students who took Math 1A from other professors.
  - fluidcruft 11y ago
    There are often very big challenges in the freshman courses. The case I'm most familiar with is the calculus courses (in undergrad I was an engineering and mathematics dual major so I had to figure out how to splice in the coursework and petition to get some courses substituted for others etc). There is a lot of pressure on the non-majors course to deemphasize the mechanics of calculation and move toward theory and reliance on Mathematica for mechanics (I think this battle has been lost, it was raging in the mid-to-late 90's)--this suits the sciences well and students are happy because they don't have to grind hard. The majors course is more rigorous but needs to be focused on the Mathematics curriculum arc and emphasizes more abstract applications and theorems. This is great except it's challenging and honestly distracting to many freshman engineers who need calculus as a tool quickly for their other courses. Anyway, the college of engineering was always trying to figure out how to get their freshmen through a rigorous enough calculus so that they weren't having to shadow teach calculus in their other courses. One big option that was always in the air was for engineering to give up and teach it's own mathematics. Of course, the mathematics department fights like crazy to prevent (obviously because mathematics revenue is very teaching dependent, whereas engineering is well funded by grants and industry). Anyway, it's not easy to get the balance correct (nobody was ever happy with the results). I very much doubt any single professor has enough experience to understand all the compromises these freshman courses must satisfy. It's great to make students happy, but it really puts a drag in upper level teaching if the foundations aren't right.
    - retbull 11y ago
      You still didn't refute that his students are doing better in their later classes. If your complaint is lack of foundation what is causing his students to do better?
sweezyjeezy 11y ago
"Proofs are more important than memorizing a formula and forgetting it after a couple of month." I didn't go to Berkeley, but I had exams like this - you could pass them without actually understanding the material by memorising everything in sight. Quoting a proof doesn't show that you have any in-depth grasp of the concepts, that you can actually apply them to a problem you haven't seen before.

TruePath 11y ago

While I agree that the most important thing is convincing the 1 person out of 1,000 to be a math major (or physics or whatever) I'm afraid the university isn't ok with handing everyone else As without mastering a certain minimum skill set. Besides, the math department isn't a free agent in this. Other departments expect students who have passed math 1A to have certain skills. If the math department was free to teach math 1A as an advertisement for mathematics (the way other departments get to teach their base courses) it would be a much different class. Hell, it wouldn't even be about calculus. So long as the physicists, economists, chemists etc.. etc.. say "we need students with skills X, Y and Z" there has to be a class whose content (and hence a decent grade in) is X, Y and Z. The name of that class is 1A and it helps no one to just teach a different class under that name without reforming the system. The math department ALREADY OFFERS OTHER CLASSES DESIGNED TO DO EXPOSE STUDENTS TO MATH IN EXACTLY THE WAY YOU MENTION. These are courses that deliberately avoid the equations and rote memorization that generated so much fear in high school and are designed to be low stress while showing off the wonder and creativity of mathematics. Unfortunately, few people ever take these courses because students don't want any more math than they have to take and the guidance counselors and university won't push or require them. As you said about the final (which I wholeheartedly agree with) if you give students the choice how is it the department's fault you take it. Students have a choice to approach math in a more exploratory, more encouraging fashion but they choose to do the minimum needed to take whatever other class they need. It's ironic because that's also what makes calculus so hard for them...they want to apply a rule and confidently move on...not think hard about a math problem in ways that might be dead ends. That is what's so sad about math education. Understanding comes from trying to fit the concepts together and even (especially) professional mathematicians fail 90% of the time. Students, especially those who haven't done well in math find that very distressing. Hell, pick any subject you aren't good at (which has clear success/failure conditions) and really try to do it well. It makes you feel dumb and you give up. Add to that years of pre-college math (often taught by teachers who themselves seek the reassurance of rote procedure) which brain washes the curious kids into believing that doing math is just applying procedures and it's an uphill battle. Ultimately, I think the problem is that we try and force kids who aren't really interested to know math they don't need. Just like other subjects let the students who want to learn come to you. With the advent of modern computer algebra system no one benefits making kids memorize rote procedures beyond basic arithmetic since without understanding they will never apply it in the real world.

moron4hire 11y ago
This would make sense as a counter argument if his students who took Math 1A from him didn't also do better on other math courses than students who took Math 1A from other professors.
- fluidcruft 11y ago
  There are often very big challenges in the freshman courses. The case I'm most familiar with is the calculus courses (in undergrad I was an engineering and mathematics dual major so I had to figure out how to splice in the coursework and petition to get some courses substituted for others etc). There is a lot of pressure on the non-majors course to deemphasize the mechanics of calculation and move toward theory and reliance on Mathematica for mechanics (I think this battle has been lost, it was raging in the mid-to-late 90's)--this suits the sciences well and students are happy because they don't have to grind hard. The majors course is more rigorous but needs to be focused on the Mathematics curriculum arc and emphasizes more abstract applications and theorems. This is great except it's challenging and honestly distracting to many freshman engineers who need calculus as a tool quickly for their other courses. Anyway, the college of engineering was always trying to figure out how to get their freshmen through a rigorous enough calculus so that they weren't having to shadow teach calculus in their other courses. One big option that was always in the air was for engineering to give up and teach it's own mathematics. Of course, the mathematics department fights like crazy to prevent (obviously because mathematics revenue is very teaching dependent, whereas engineering is well funded by grants and industry). Anyway, it's not easy to get the balance correct (nobody was ever happy with the results). I very much doubt any single professor has enough experience to understand all the compromises these freshman courses must satisfy. It's great to make students happy, but it really puts a drag in upper level teaching if the foundations aren't right.
  - retbull 11y ago
    You still didn't refute that his students are doing better in their later classes. If your complaint is lack of foundation what is causing his students to do better?

sweezyjeezy 11y ago

"Proofs are more important than memorizing a formula and forgetting it after a couple of month." I didn't go to Berkeley, but I had exams like this - you could pass them without actually understanding the material by memorising everything in sight. Quoting a proof doesn't show that you have any in-depth grasp of the concepts, that you can actually apply them to a problem you haven't seen before.