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Their value would be so much more heartfelt if students actually encountered math word problems outside class. But they don't. And part of it is because they do

by unabst 11y ago

Their value would be so much more heartfelt if students actually encountered math word problems outside class. But they don't. And part of it is because they don't exist. They are hostile games. By hostile I mean they are designed with gotchas and purposely ambiguous, and they have unnatural rules like the inability to ask for more information or to get help. In real life, problem solving does not present itself like this. Those that do well are the students that understand the game, and play along. They are not learning math, but do well "against" math word problems. The question as educators is simply, "is this the definition of good?"

EliRivers 11y ago
Almost every situation for which I have needed mathematics outside the classroom has been a "word problem". Nobody has ever simply come to me and asked me to multiply two numbers together and then add the result to something else. Instead, I get word problems like "how long is this task going to take, if we can give you this much resource?" and "how long is it going to take to drive from A to B at this time, given this knowledge of traffic conditions?" and "what's the best tradeoff of time spent travelling against airfare, to travel from here to there, given these limiting conditions?" and so on and so on. Word problems don't exist? Nonsense.
- unabst 11y ago
  Where are the gotchas and purposefully ambiguous terms? And none of those are difficult math problems either. Regarding traffic, a smart human (including students) would just refer to an app on their phone. There is a clear line between problems described with words, and these "word problems". The topic was about math, but physics is worse. My high school physics teacher had a hobby of writing to text book publishers about how "silly" some problems were. They're designed to be difficult and relevant to specific material, but in the process reality goes out the window.

by unabst 11y ago

EliRivers 11y ago

Almost every situation for which I have needed mathematics outside the classroom has been a "word problem". Nobody has ever simply come to me and asked me to multiply two numbers together and then add the result to something else. Instead, I get word problems like "how long is this task going to take, if we can give you this much resource?" and "how long is it going to take to drive from A to B at this time, given this knowledge of traffic conditions?" and "what's the best tradeoff of time spent travelling against airfare, to travel from here to there, given these limiting conditions?" and so on and so on. Word problems don't exist? Nonsense.

unabst 11y ago
Where are the gotchas and purposefully ambiguous terms? And none of those are difficult math problems either. Regarding traffic, a smart human (including students) would just refer to an app on their phone. There is a clear line between problems described with words, and these "word problems". The topic was about math, but physics is worse. My high school physics teacher had a hobby of writing to text book publishers about how "silly" some problems were. They're designed to be difficult and relevant to specific material, but in the process reality goes out the window.